Forgive Yourself
by Shawn45
Summary: A training mission takes a deadly turn when Yang ends up taking a blow meant for Ruby, killing her in the process. Now Ruby, Weiss, and Blake each must deal with depression as they try their best to move on without her while continuing their education at Beacon. Ruby/Weiss
1. Chapter 1

Well, I cut this story up into four parts, and then I decided to rewrite the ending based on feedback extending it even more. That's why I love this community though, you guys aren't afraid to voice your opinions, even if they are harsh. It definitely makes me a better writer, and consequently, I think it makes the story itself better as a result. So thank you for the criticism and reviews.

Please Enjoy.

XxXxXxX

"RUBY! LOOK OUT!"

Time slowed to a crawl for Ruby as she twisted her body around, the smile on her face fading quickly as she saw the Beowolf that had somehow managed to get pass her guard. Her eyes widened by a fraction as she saw its sharp claws aiming straight for her heart, and she hesitated, a mere second was all it took for the beast to strike its deadly claws forward for the kill. It was laughable that one of the strongest Huntresses-in-training would be put down by such a weak foe, but this was the price of underestimation.

It was all so easy though! Her team was sent on a typical hunting mission to simply clear out Grimm for a nearby village to the north of Vale, and for the most part it was a ridiculously easy mission for such a strong team like themselves. However, that got to her head, and Ruby started to play a bit too much – kiting the Grimm around, laughing as they failed over and over to kill her. They became mere toys for her to play with, and that is what cost her. She hadn't expected a Beowolf of all things to go for her when she had her guard lowered, but it did, and she could almost see a satisfied and sadistic smile as the beast's maw widened with drool slipping out to the ground.

She was so certain of her death in that moment that it was quite a surprise when suddenly a flash of yellow appeared in front of her, and her sister appeared with her arms wide apart, using her own body as a shield for her sister. Ruby didn't even have time to comprehend what was going on before the beast dug its claw deep into the girl's body, and only a second later its arm burst out of her back, her blood splattering all over the red-clad girl.

Ruby watched in horror as her sister's body shuddered briefly, her head flying back as she spit out a large amount of blood, and then her body went limp, her weight dragging the beast down, but it was quick to rip its arm out of her, and use its tongue to lick the fresh blood, before its eyes flickered back towards Ruby. It stepped forward, one of its feet pressing onto the girl's body below him, and it let out a menacing growl.

A blink – and then another – and all she saw afterwards was red.

"YANG!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, she gripped her scythe tightly with both hands, and with as much strength as she could muster, she swung the weapon as hard as she was physically capable of doing, using her semblance to add extra speed to the attack. The Beowolf didn't even have a chance to react as she sliced its torso clean in half. Not content with just that, Ruby rushed forward and rammed her entire body weight into the beast, knocking it off of her sister, and then she raised her scythe again, slamming the blade down on the beast's head.

Sure that it was dead, Ruby let go of Crescent Rose, allowing it to stay firmly stuck in the beast for now, and she looked to Yang, who was face down in the ground, a pool of blood growing larger by the second under her. She rushed to her side, and gently grabbed her by the shoulder, turning her body over so she could see her face, "Yang, come on…" Ruby mumbled, her hands shaking as she held her sister's head gently, looking down in her lilac eyes. She got rid of some stray strands of hair on the girls face, absently noting the blood smearing across Yang's forehead as she moved it away.

"H - Help! I need help! Yang's hurt!" She looked around frantically now, "Weiss? Blake?!" She called out, but neither of them were nearby, having gotten split up during the chaos. "No, no, no…" She looked back down at Yang and shook her gently, "Wake up!"

Yang's eyes were glazed over, and her mouth was open, blood coating her lips. Her hair she cared so much about was now a mixture of yellow and red, having mixed with the blood still forming around her. She didn't move a single muscle, and her eyes never once blinked. Ruby felt her heart suddenly seize in her chest as she finally started to wonder if she was dead.

"No! Yang! YANG!" She screamed, finally noticing the fact that she wasn't breathing, "H – Hold on!" She set the girl down, and placed both of her hands on Yang's chest, and began to pump up and down, "Come on! Breathe!" She really didn't know what she was doing, she had some vague memories of how CPR was done, but not exactly how it worked. Still, she pressed on, pressing down on her sister's abdomen, "BREATHE!"

Tears were beginning to form at the corners of her eyes as she started to take shallow breaths, her mind was freezing as she desperately tried to do anything to bring her sister back. She could vaguely recall something about blowing air into their mouth, so not even caring that her sister's lips were bloodied, she pressed her mouth to her and blew air into her sister's mouth, "Yang… Please… Breathe!" She cried, gasping for breath and coughing, using her sleeve to wipe away blood from her mouth.

She leaned back and took in the full sight of her sister. And finally she couldn't deny it anymore. She was dead… Ruby's entire body shook, and she started to breath quicker, her breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps as she vividly recalled what it was like when she lost her mother. She knew that she was beginning to hyperventilate, and that she had to calm down, but despite screaming that in her mind, her body refused to act, and that rational part of her mind faded as tears poured from her eyes, and she collapsed to the ground, dizziness and nausea welling up within her.

"Ruby? Yang?" Ruby couldn't turn around to see who it was, but she knew that was Blake's voice. "What the – Oh my god!" A sharp intake of breath, and Ruby saw Blake rushing over to Yang's side, "Yang?! Ruby! What the hell happened?!"

Ruby felt herself being lifted up by Weiss, who looked just as shocked and surprised as Blake did, "Ruby, are you okay?"

Ruby was still hyperventilating however, "I – I – Y – Yang!" She looked sharply over to the girl on the ground beside her, "H – H – Help – h – her!"

Blake pressed a finger to the yellow haired girl's neck, and her face turned pale, "I don't feel a pulse." She muttered.

"You're joking!" Weiss exclaimed, her eyes widening in horror.

"Do I look like I'm joking to you?" Blake snapped harshly, "What happened?! She was fine not even five minutes ago!" She saw the shredded hole in the girl's chest that was obscured by the girl's clothing, so she moved it aside, "This is…"

"A – A – B – Beo…" Ruby coughed, still struggling to stay conscious and helpful, though it was quite difficult. Her mind was close to shutting down, and she wanted so badly to just sleep and pray that this was all a dream, but she couldn't… Not with her teammates here. "Help - H – her!" She begged Blake.

"Ruby…" Weiss muttered, looking down at the girl with a mixture of pity and sadness, "I don't think we can do anything…"

"She's dead." Blake muttered, still in shock herself.

That did it, Ruby felt bile rushing up her throat, and she rolled off of Weiss and got on her hands and knees as she violently emptied in her stomach, coughing as the wretched bile left an awful aftertaste in her mouth. "No!" She cried, not even bothering to wipe her mouth as she sobbed, "Yang's fine – R – Right?!"

As her two teammates watched, Ruby crawled towards her sister and lifted her head up into her lap, "It'll be fine! Yang will wake up! She'll be fine and we can all just laugh about this little scare!"

"Ruby, stop…" Weiss whispered, averting her eyes from the sight.

"Yang… Please…" Ruby's voice cracked, and her lips trembled, "Don't go… We have a lot of work to do, remember? Tests are next week, and you promised Weiss that we'd study as soon as we got back, right?"

Blake just stared down at her partner, her body refusing to do anything other than stare helplessly down at the body of her fallen companion. She could only vaguely hear Ruby begging and whimpering for her sister to wake up. Instead, she couldn't help but wonder what to do now – Yang was her partner, and arguably her best friend… What was she going to do without her?

"Not like this…" Ruby cried, "I can't lose you too… M – Mom already left me, you said you'd always be there for me, so you can't go, you'd be breaking your promise…"

Weiss placed her hand on her partner's shoulder, though Ruby hardly noticed, and instead was entirely focused on Yang, "Ruby… I…" She paused, unsure of what to say. They had been partners for several years now, and she had grown used to interacting with people on a more civil basis – somewhat – but all of that did absolutely nothing for her now. What could she say to make this better? Was there anything to be said? Instead, she just gripped Ruby's shoulder, and tried to fight her own tears that threatened to come.

"We were supposed to always be there for each other…" Ruby muttered, her voice becoming hoarse, "Please… Come on… Don't go… Please don't go…"

"Ruby." Weiss tried to keep her voice firm, "We h – have to call for help." She mentally cursed herself for stuttering even the slightest bit, "We have to let them know about what happened…"

"Y – Yeah…" Ruby mumbled, her eyes turning to look at Weiss, though they were quite unfocused, "T – They can help her…"

Weiss tried not to grimace at the near maniacal look in Ruby's eyes, but it was a failed effort. With all of the blood covering Ruby's face, it was difficult to see her as the strong leader she needed to be, and not as a scared child. "Ruby. You need to get a hold of yourself. Now is not the time for mourning, okay?" It almost physically hurt to say that to her, especially given the circumstances, but they were still in enemy territory. Any moment, a Beowolf could come out and try to get them while they were weak. Blake looked to be out of commission just as much as Ruby was, so if they were attacked, it fell on Weiss to keep them safe.

"You – You're right…" Ruby blinked a few times, and Weiss nearly sighed aloud in relief as she regained a little focus and was actually looking at Weiss, "We… We…" Again her focus started fading, "I…" She shook her head, and tried to stand, but it was a futile effort, and she just collapsed back down to the ground, "Scroll… Weiss… Use your scroll and call for help… I'll protect us…" She again tried to stand, but again she failed, falling to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.

Weiss did as Ruby said, immediately calling the emergency number. The call was very short, and as soon as she mentioned that one of their team was dead, it ended promptly, with the promise of help coming immediately ending the call. She pocketed her scroll, and looked back towards Ruby, who was just staring at her hands. "Ruby?"

"It'll be fine… Yang will be ok. It'll all be ok…" Ruby mumbled to herself over and over, causing Weiss to frown, "Right… Right, Weiss? She'll be ok!"

Weiss knelt down in front of her team leader, and again put her hands on Ruby's shoulders, "Ruby… It's… It's going to be alright, ok?" She lied blatantly to the girl's face, but Ruby showed her a desperate smile, and nodded approvingly, "So please pull yourself together."

"Yeah, but…" Ruby glanced back at Yang, and her smile faded away, "She's… She's dead…"

Weiss wanted to pull her hair out as Ruby kept shifting back to the panicking little girl after every little bit of development towards being functional, but given the circumstances, she could hardly blame her. "Ruby… Please… Just calm down."

"Don't leave me alone…" Ruby cried, staring back at Yang, "Please… I don't want to be alone…"

XxXxXxX

Three days.

It had been three whole days since the incident, and Weiss still couldn't believe it. Every single day since then she woke up in a living nightmare, hoping against hope each night that when she woke up the next morning, things would go back to how they were. Unfortunately, she learned early in life that wishing for such things was a path towards despair. Her life had been difficult growing up, having to live up to her family's nigh impossible standards, having to learn to fight and defend herself at such an early age, and coming to terms with her place in life had all done its damage on her psyche, but it was Ruby who had saved her from drowning in despair.

Too bad she couldn't return the favor. She frowned as she woke up to yet another bleak morning, and she looked at the bunk above her, precariously tied to the ceiling. Such a thing made her incredibly nervous for the first few weeks of school, but now, three years later, she'd simply grown used to it, however, that was hardly what worried her that morning. The girl on the top bunk was very quiet, not making a single sound, but if Weiss had to guess, she knew that the girl hadn't gotten any sleep that night.

"Ruby?" Weiss called, "Are you awake?"

No answer, not that she necessarily expected one anyway. With a sigh, she turned to look at the other side of the room, where Blake slept on the lower bunk of the other bunk bed. The Faunus girl was being quiet, but Weiss also knew that she probably hadn't gotten much sleep either – all of them didn't sleep much these past few days… Not since Yang died. Weiss sat up, and got out of bed, her body protesting the entire way, but she pushed forth anyway. She had to shower and prepare for classes, despite how dumb and trivial they may seem to her now.

Of course they had been excused from classes, but Weiss was nothing if not a perfectionist, and despite the despair gripping her team's heart, she still went, and she kept notes, and she studied. The second day Blake joined her, though like Weiss, she was silent, ignoring the whispers from people around them. Weiss had bit her tongue so many times these past few days to prevent herself from lashing out at them – who were they to gossip about them?! What did they know? Didn't they recognize how much it hurt them when they did that?

Weiss stepped into the shower, and let out a soft sigh as the warm water started going down her back, and she again thought back to Ruby. The poor girl was nearly catatonic when help finally arrived in the forest. Her voice was hoarse from begging Yang to come back, and when the medics started to take Yang's body away, she absolutely lost it, wailing and crying, realizing that her sister was truly dead. It broke Weiss's heart to see Ruby like that, and the entire time she held the girl on the way back to Beacon – distinctly out of character of her, to be sure, but given the circumstances, it was perfectly understandable.

Ruby only seemed to get worse as time went on. After being released from the hospital, she, Ruby, and Blake were all told that they were exempt from classes for as long as they deemed necessary, and they went back to their rooms. Ruby was no longer crying, but she seemed to be only a former shell of herself. She was very quiet the entire way to their room, and then when they finally reached their destination, Ruby pulled herself into her bunk, and did little else. She got up for the occasional bathroom break, but otherwise, she never left. She didn't eat, she didn't sleep, she didn't do _anything_, and Weiss didn't know what to do about it.

Blake was at least sort of returning to normal, though Weiss could see that Yang's death had affected her just as bad as Ruby. The Faunus never said anything, even when asked a question in class, she would just silently stare straight ahead. She never laughed, she never smiled, and she never even interacted with her teammates. She just seemed like a machine, going through the motions of living her life, but not actually living it.

Weiss reached for the shampoo, and noticed that she grabbed the wrong one – the one she was holding now was Yang's favorite brand…

"_Now don't you ever touch this, or you'll be sorry!"_

Weiss's lips curled and she blinked her eyes rapidly to try and keep her tears at bay as she recalled the memory. Yang was always so happy and energetic… Despite being such a nuisance to her all the time, Weiss couldn't help but miss the big oaf. What was the saying? You never really appreciated what you have until it's gone. That's right… Yang was an annoying hyperactive idiot, but she was a good friend, and one that Weiss was going to dearly miss.

"Damn it… Pull yourself together…" Weiss muttered, wiping her eyes with the hot water, making sure no stains would appear. She could hardly go to class advertising she had cried, she unfortunately had a reputation she was required by her father to upkeep. She may be able to get away with it now, but she was hardly go to bother trying, not wanting to get on his bad side.

There was a quick knock on the door, and Weiss looked up, "I'm in the shower," She called, already knowing it was Blake, and like the last two days, Blake saw fit not to respond, and everything was silent yet again. Weiss stared at the door for a little, a small part of her hoping that Blake would say _anything_ to her, but it was a futile hope, and she looked back at the shower wall, placing her hand against it and leaning forward, her forehead touching the cool wall.

Nothing was ever going to be the same anymore.

Twenty minutes later, she exited the bathroom, her hair was still damp, but it was dry enough to where she was able to sloppily get it how she usually did it. While she was still willing to attend classes, and she knew she had to look good, she didn't put her all into her appearance, her heart just wasn't into it. Upon leaving the room, Blake stepped right pass her and entered the bathroom, the door shutting quickly, and a quick _click_ proving that she locked the door behind her.

Weiss stared at the closed door for a few seconds, and then back towards the room to the top bunk of her bed, where she knew her partner was. Mustering up the courage, she stepped forward towards the bed, "Ruby," She called, "Are you ok?" She winced – an idiotic question, of course she wasn't ok. "Ruby… Do you want to come to class with us today?" She asked only a few seconds later, hoping to cover her blunder.

It hardly matter, since the only answer she received was a very slight shift in the sheets Ruby wrapped herself in. Other than that, it was silent yet again.

"Very well…" Weiss muttered, looking away.

She wandered over to the drawer beside her bed, and gathered up her books that sat atop it, making sure she had all of the proper texts for her class, and she went to leave the room, sparing Ruby one last glance. When she saw that Ruby wasn't making any effort to move, she opened the door and started to walk to the cafeteria to get something to eat. She just couldn't bear to stay in the room with its horribly oppressive atmosphere. Guilt wracked her body as she shut the door, leaving behind her two depressed teammates, but there wasn't anything she could do.

XxXxXxX

The day went by painfully slow for Weiss, and just like the two before it, she could hear the whispers from the other students, which only caused her blood to boil. Why couldn't they just shut up about this? Did they really need to constantly talk about it? She grit her teeth as she walked down the hall, her hands tightening on the books she held close to her chest, as she made her way to the cafeteria for lunch. She still had several classes left, but at least she got a lengthy break to attempt to relax during.

Once she entered the cafeteria, she looked around in a vain hope of seeing Ruby around, but she wasn't able to spot the distinctive red cloak of the girl, and she just sighed, feeling her heart sink further. It was stupid to hope for Ruby to recover so soon, but having her partner and team leader behaving in such a way was really… Distressing, she supposed. She was so used to Ruby being an active and chatty girl who was always happy, so witnessing her be the exact opposite was disturbing.

"There has to be something I can do…" She muttered to herself. She watched the students gathering food, and a light-bulb lit up in her head – food! Ruby hadn't eaten for days now, so perhaps Ruby would start to recover if Weiss brought her something to eat? Well… It was unlikely, that was for sure, but she was at a loss of what else to do, so she decided to go with this for now.

"Weiss?" She stopped in her steps, and turned towards the voice behind her, "Oh wow, you look…" He paused, "Um, well, good – good!"

Weiss narrowed her eyes in annoyance, "What do you want Jaune – other than to insult my appearance?"

Jaune winced and averted his eyes, rubbing his neck sheepishly, "I – I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that, but…" He sighed, "Weiss, are you okay?"

"I'm fine." She lied.

Jaune frowned, glancing towards her briefly, before looking away again, "Well… That's good, but Ruby hasn't been out of your room for a while now."

"What about it?" Weiss asked harshly, glaring at him, "Do you want to know what all the gossip is about?"

"No," He sighed, and she noticed him straighten his posture and look her directly in the eyes, "I just want to say that if you, or Ruby or Blake need someone to talk to, my team is willing to be there for you. I can't say that I know what it's like to… go through what you've been through, but my sister always said that it's better to talk to someone about how you feel rather than bottle it up, so…" His posture faltered, and he looked away, "Tell Ruby that she can talk to us, ok?"

"As if you can help her…" Weiss grumbled unhappily, "You're right about one thing though: you have no idea what this feels like, so stay out of our business."

"That's fine…" Jaune sighed, his shoulders sagging in defeat, "But I mean it, we'll be here if you guys need anything."

"Yeah, I hear you." Weiss had already turned away and walked towards the food counter, dismissing his concerns with a short wave. She didn't see if he looked dejected or hurt, but she hardly cared. He still had his entire team alive and healthy. With that in mind, what the hell could he do to help them? Her frown deepened into a grimace as she started gathering food on a small tray, making sure to pick Ruby's favorites, and she left quickly so she wouldn't have to be around anyone any longer.

Opening the door to their room, she had to swallow quickly as her heart sank at how dark it was. The oppressive atmosphere was thick, and it honestly reminded her of her home back at Atlas. She pressed on anyway, opening the door with her shoulder as she guided the tray of food in with her hands, and then once she was in the room, she kicked the door shut. Looking back towards the beds, she just knew Ruby was still on her bunk.

"Ruby," She called, "I've got you some food." She managed to snap the lights on, and she allowed her eyes a few seconds to adjust.

There was no reply, not even any movement, and it made Weiss wonder if the girl was asleep right now.

"Come on," She set the tray of food down on her dresser along with her books, relieving her heavy burden, and she climbed atop her bed so she could look at Ruby's bunk above hers. She pulled herself up halfway, and finally caught a glimpse of Ruby, and it nearly made her jump out of her skin. Ruby was staring right at her, her eyes were bloodshot and had black circles forming around them, as if she hadn't slept in days. She didn't even blink, and her eyes were entirely unfocused, as if she didn't even notice Weiss looking straight at her. The smell was also bad, and Weiss grimaced as she noticed Ruby's greasy hair – It was only three days since they came back, but it had been longer since Ruby had even taken a shower.

Suddenly, Ruby's eyes seemed to snap back into focus, and they zoned in on Weiss before her, "Weiss…?" She mumbled so quietly, her voice sounding gravely and hoarse, "What do you want?" She reached up and wiped her eyes with her hands.

"You haven't eaten in days," Weiss replied casually, trying to ignore the fact that Ruby looked like hell, "I've brought some food."

"No thanks." Ruby muttered, turning to the other side so all Weiss could see was her shoulder. "I'm not hungry…"

Weiss glared at the girl briefly before she swallowed down her anger – Ruby was hurting, and yelling at her wasn't going to fix things. "Ruby, you _have_ to eat." She instead said sharply, "Look… I know you're upset, but you can't do this to yourself."

No reply again. If Weiss had to guess, she'd say that Ruby lost her focus and was again just staring off into space, essentially being a zombie.

"Damn it Ruby!" Weiss growled. She hopped down to the ground again, and stared at the plate of food. What in the world should she do in this kind of situation? She couldn't even think of a similar situation in her life comparable to this one, and it only frustrated her more that she couldn't help her partner. She picked up a strawberry off of the tray, and idly examined it, "I wonder if it'd be okay to just shove this in her mouth…" She whispered quietly to herself.

The door to their room suddenly clicked, and Weiss glanced up in surprise as she saw the third member of their team walk into the room. Blake was still as silent as ever, and she spared Weiss a quick look, and her eyes landed on the tray of food. They back to Weiss, and then up towards Ruby, and a frown marred her features, "What are you doing?" She asked – the first thing she'd said in days.

Weiss stumbled over her words initially, shocked that Blake actually spoke, "I – I'm trying to get Ruby to eat." She explained, "She hasn't eaten in days, and it can't be good for her."

Again Blake glanced up towards Ruby, and her expression grew even worse – a glare, and her lips curled in disgust, "Why bother?"

"What – What do you mean?" Weiss asked, again shocked by the girl's words in less than a minute, "She's part of our team!"

"Ruby doesn't even give a shit about our team, that's why Yang died, after all." She grit her teeth at the mention of the yellow-haired girl's death, "Let her wallow away in her misery, she deserves it."

"Are you even listening to yourself?" Weiss asked, "How can you say something like this?"

"If she had just done her fucking job instead of being a little stupid idiot like she always is, Yang would be alive. The Grimm aren't toys, they aren't a foe to be underestimated, and she as a _team leader_ should have known all of that! She's supposed to guide and protect us, but what she did on that mission was the exact opposite of all of that! She's worthless, and she's responsible for Yang's death, so I say let her rot."

Weiss's face grew murderous the longer Blake went on, and she crushed the strawberry in her hand as she tried to contain her anger, "OUT!" Weiss finally shouted, "Do you even understand what you're saying?!"

"Why are you defending her?" Blake asked, pointedly glaring at the heiress, "Just because she's your partner? You're always the logical one – don't you agree that Ruby was out of line during that mission?"

Weiss thought back – Ruby was particularly annoying on this mission with how she bounced around everywhere, talking a mile a minute and toying with the Grimm, but she distinctly recalled Yang was laughing along with her… Not only that, but she and Blake were laughing and having fun too, despite how much either of them tried to hide it behind their respective façades. "You're right about her being out of line," Weiss finally agreed, "But none of us tried to stop it. Ruby always listens to her team, and if any one of us had told her to tone it down, you _know_ she would have. This is as much our fault as it is hers."

Blake paused for a moment, and then her eyes narrowed into a dangerous glare, and she marched over to Weiss, "Don't you _DARE_ put this on me! We're all competent fighters, and Beowolves should have posed no threat to us, but Ruby couldn't handle one of the beasts, and she got Yang killed because of that. She should have tried to behave during the fights at least, don't you agree? Or are you just going to keep defending her?" Blake was now right in Weiss's face, and both girls were glaring angrily at each other.

"Get out of my face!" Weiss snapped, shoving the girl roughly away, "Just get out! I'm done wasting my time with you!"

Blake stumbled back a few feet, and then just glared angrily at Weiss, and then her eyes looked back up to Ruby. She looked like she was about to say something, with her mouth opening slowly, but then she shook her head, and walked over to the dresser beside her bed, gathering a few books from atop it, and stomping out of the room, leaving only Weiss and Ruby yet again.

Weiss let out a deep sigh, trying to rid herself of her excess anger, and she wiped her hand on her sheets, reminding herself to wash them later that day unless if she wanted it to smell like strawberries. She looked at the tray of food – Blake's words running through her mind the entire time, and she picked up a strawberry. "Blake's wrong," She called up to Ruby, "I know you heard that, and I want you to know that this isn't your fault." Again she went up, this time with a small batch of Strawberries in her hands, and she climbed on the bed, causing it to swing precariously for a few seconds before settling down.

Ruby was facing away from her, but she could hear her sniffling, and she saw her shoulders shift every few seconds, knowing that she was probably reaching up and wiping tears. "Just go away…"

"Ruby, you have to eat." Weiss replied calmly, "I'm not going until you eat all of these strawberries. They're your favorite, so eat up. I also have some cookies you can eat too."

"I'm not hungry," Was Ruby's curt reply.

"Ok, enough of this moping stuff," Weiss's anger flared as she reached over, grabbing Ruby's shoulder and pulling her around so she'd have to face Weiss. Immediately Weiss regretted it though, since she had to see Ruby's tear strained face, which made her chest hurt just to see. The one member of their team who seemed so powerful and unstoppable was just a sniveling little girl, crying over her lost sister and what she heard her supposed friend say about her. "Ruby…"

"Just go!" Ruby cried roughly, reaching up and rubbing her puffy eyes, "I – I just want to be alone…"

Weiss's resolve was breaking with each second, but she let out a calm breath, and again reached for a strawberry, "Ruby, I know you're sad, we a – all are…" Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat, "But you need to eat, you're just withering away up here, and I don't want that to happen…"

"But Blake was right," Ruby cried, "So why are you still being nice to me?"

Weiss felt anger flare up again, and she glared hatefully back down to the door, "Blake was wrong."

"No, she wasn't… I wasn't being a good team leader… I let a stupid beowolf get by…" She sniffled, wiping her eyes on her arm and she kept crying, "I k – k – killed…" She couldn't finished, and just started sobbing.

Weiss didn't ever think she'd want to attack her teammates, but at that moment, she wanted to strangle Blake so badly. Logically, she knew that it was most likely Blake's grief doing most of the talking, but allowing Ruby to hear all of those hateful things when she too was going through grief was just the worst possible thing she could have done. Even worse though was that looking at Ruby crying so hard made Weiss's eyes start to shine with tears, and she tried her damn hardest not to let them fall.

"Here, if you eat half of these, then I'll leave you alone for now." Weiss's original objective was to get her to eat all of them, but she knew that she had to make a compromise somewhere.

Ruby's cries softened, and now she was just staring at the Strawberries that Weiss had placed on the sheets, and she reached forward, grabbing one of them and rolling it around in her hand. She suddenly dropped it though, and looked at her hand in fear. She wiped her hand on her sheets over and over, but whatever it was didn't seem to be going away. "I – I need to get this off first…"

"Get what off?" Weiss asked curiously, seeing Ruby's hand was just fine.

"This blood… There's so much blood on my hands…" She looked at her other hand and formed them into fists, "I – I thought I washed them off earlier, but it's back…"

"There's no blood, Ruby, calm down." She reached forth to try and grab Ruby's hand, but the girl brought them both to her chest, and looked fearfully at Weiss, "Ruby, what in the world is going on?"

"Don't touch me!" She cried, "I – I don't want to get it on you too… This… It's all my fault…"

Weiss grit her teeth, realizing now that Ruby was probably experiencing Post Traumatic Stress. She remembered the doctor saying something about it to all of them, claiming that seeing the death of a close friend would likely cause all of them to go through it, and it could manifest in many different ways. "Ruby, I won't touch you, ok? But I need you to just calm down."

Ruby astonishingly heard her voice, and did as she was asked, calming down ever so slightly. She hid her hands under her sheets, and Weiss couldn't figure out if it was because she didn't want to see the supposed blood anymore, or if she didn't want her to touch them. "Ok…" Ruby muttered silently.

"Now, since you can't use your hands, I'm going to feed these to you myself, got it?" She picked up a strawberry, and she pulled off the leaves, "Is that fine?"

Ruby's lips trembled, "Why are you being so nice to me?"

It was the same question as earlier, and Weiss just averted her eyes, feeling self-conscious now, "You're my teammate you dunce, we're supposed to care for each other, right?"

Though she was crying, Weiss could see the start of a small smile forming on Ruby face, "Th – Thank you…" Ruby whispered.

"It's alright, now open up." Weiss plucked the first strawberry into Ruby's mouth, and felt great relief as the girl finally started to eat something. She didn't make any sounds suggesting that she was enjoying it, but seeing her eating was more than enough.

She must have been really hungry though, because Weiss was able to give her the entire batch of strawberries, in addition to a full water bottle. Ruby must have been dehydrated and exhausted, and moments after finishing everything Weiss prepared for her, she fell to sleep. Weiss just sat beside her for a few minutes, watching her, before she finally climbed down from Ruby's bed and looked at the time.

"Afternoon classes are starting soon…" She mumbled, taking the empty tray and the textbooks she'd need. She looked back up to Ruby's bunk, "I'll be back soon."

Of course there was no answer, but she did feel a little lighter as she walked out of her dorm room.


	2. Chapter 2

Why was it that with every tiny bit of progress she made, it seemed to go away the next time she saw Ruby? She was hopeful that after actually getting Ruby to eat that she would open up and start talking to them, but that didn't happen. It was as if their entire conversation didn't happen, and she was back to being the same mopey girl she was from before. It was frustrating, but Weiss would always keep her anger in check, knowing that Ruby went through a traumatic experience, and it wasn't likely that she'd recover any time soon.

Still, she did force the girl to eat several times a day, and she even managed to get her to go take a shower, making sure to quickly change her sheets while she was in the shower, since they were so dirty and disgusting. It felt good to see Ruby being slightly more active, if even just a little bit, but it also hurt to look at her, only seeing a shell of the girl she used to be. They rarely talked to one another, but she hoped that at least her presence was helping Ruby along with her recovery.

Blake on the other hand seemed to only become more hostile towards Weiss since that day. She completely ignored her, even when Weiss tried to apologize to her for snapping like she did. Didn't Blake know that having her apologize – the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company – was quite a feat? She didn't seem to care at all though, and would walk pass Weiss at every attempt at conversation, and soon Weiss did the same right back to her. It was impossible now to tell that they used to ever be friends, since they acted like they hated each other so much now.

Days passed, and soon it was nearly two weeks since Yang's death, and Yang's service was scheduled for the following week. Weiss figured that they were waiting for her family to arrive to Vale from Mistral, and business must have held them up, but either way, it was taking much longer than expected. She was glad that Ice Dust was a thing, and preserving her body wasn't an issue. In a way the delay was good though, because Ruby seemed incapable of even walking much these days, and she didn't want to see the wreck she would be at the funeral.

However, one day she and Blake were called in to Ozpin's office, and they both now stood in front of the man, who just stared at both of them silently. Weiss and Blake didn't fidget at all as he stared at them, and finally he relaxed slightly, "How are you two doing?"

What a ridiculous question, Weiss couldn't help but feel annoyed, but she didn't voice her opinion – not to this man – and she replied, "Good."

"I'm fine." Blake replied.

Weiss wondered if he knew that they were both lying. It was likely, given what they went through, but again, she didn't dare ask. Instead, she just looked the man in the eyes, and kept her hands behind her back, standing up as straight and tall as she could possibly stand.

"You both have my condolences. When word reached us about what occurred, I felt personally responsible for what happened, and I want to make things up to you in any way I can." He paused briefly, "How's Ruby doing?"

"How do you think?" Weiss snapped, and then her eyes widened, "I mean…"

"No, it's alright," Ozpin waved off her concern, "It's a ridiculous question. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that she's taking this the hardest out of all of you, given what she'd been through before."

Weiss wanted to ask about that – she briefly heard Ruby mention her mom when she was trying to wake Yang up that one day, but she never got any answers regarding it. Perhaps this was as close as she was going to get to any answers. "She's… Taking it very hard. She's not really functioning anymore." Weiss explained.

"I see." Ozpin's expression didn't change, but he did lean back in his chair, "I suppose I should get to the reason as to why you've all been called here."

"That would be appreciated." Blake muttered curtly, refusing to look over to Weiss.

"Simply put, when a team goes through such an accident." He visibly grimaced as the use of that word, but he shook his head ever so slightly to get back on topic, "We give the team some options on what to do. With Ruby seemingly out of commission as well, you both don't have partners. There's a few options we can do here – we can partner you two up –"

"NO!" Weiss exclaimed, "I refuse to be partnered with her!"

Ozpin didn't say anything, though he did look even wearier than before, "Very well. Then you have two options: I can put you two on different teams who are also missing a team member, or you can stay on the same team and wait for a replacement to fill the remaining spot."

"I want to be on a new team," Blake replied immediately once Ozpin was done.

Weiss grit her teeth, glad that Blake wanted to leave, and yet she was worried as to how Ruby would react when she learned that Blake would be leaving. She looked back towards Ozpin, and saw him looking at her expectantly, so she shook her head, "My partner's still around, so there's no need to put me with someone else. If you can find a replacement pair of partners to join our team, then I would appreciate it."

Ozpin's frown disappeared, and he looked at her neutrally, "Ms. Schnee, it's not uncommon for Hunters-in-training to quit this academy when one of their friends die – or in this case, family. If Ruby remain like this for much longer, we will start to look into other options for her."

"Why haven't you done that already?" Weiss asked.

"We always give our students time to try and come out of it themselves. The nature of being a Hunter means that you will see people die, it's not pessimism – it's just our line of work. It's always unfortunate when this happens while you're still growing into your roles, but in a way it's a test. If you're incapable of getting pass this, then you're hardly prepared to become a hunter."

"Her sister DIED!" Weiss cried, "Do you really expect her to get over this in a week?!"

Ozpin shook his head, "No, I don't." He replied evenly, "If she can't, she'll be removed from the school, and can come back anytime she wants. Granted, she'll have an entirely new team, but that's just the way things are."

"That's…" Weiss looked away, feeling her heart clenching, she didn't _want_ a new partner. Ruby was just fine, "I… See…"

"If you really want to remain her partner, then I'll say this now: she has one more week before her evaluation is completed. If she's deemed unfit to resume schooling here, then she'll be removed. If you want to continue being partners with her, then you have that much time to try and get her back on her feet, are you still willing to try?"

"Yes." Weiss replied immediately, surprising even herself with her conviction, "I'll do it. Ruby's my friend, and I _hate_ seeing her like this…" She blushed lightly, realizing she said that aloud, but she pressed on, "We're all hurting from this, but I'll make sure she's fit to attend in a week's time."

Ozpin finally smiled, "I'm glad that there's at least a ray of hope amidst the darkness." He looked away from Weiss, "It'll take a week or so for us to evaluate who'll be your new partner and team, Blake, so if you want, you may sleep in a guest room, due to the fact that you're no longer part of team RWBY."

"I'll take the guest room." Blake replied easily.

Weiss again felt anger welling up, but along with that anger was another emotion – fear. She didn't have a single idea how Ruby would react to the news that Blake was no longer part of her team. Still, she had to tell her, hiding it from Ruby wouldn't do any good, especially if she learned it from someone else. So she steeled her resolve, and nodded her head to Ozpin as she and Blake left the office.

XxXxXxX

Weiss entered her room that night, and glanced over to Blake's bed, where all of the girl's stuff was already cleared out. It was only a few hours later, but it seemed that Blake was quite eager to leave. Weiss glared angrily at the girl's bed, but she turned towards Ruby's bed, and the glare faded away. Just how in the world was she going to break this all to Ruby? Even worse than that though, how was she going to make Ruby better within a week? She had so much conviction when confronting Ozpin, but now, back in her room, she had no idea how to fix things.

"Ruby?" She called, hoping the girl would say anything back.

As usual, silence met her.

"Ruby, we have to talk, can you please just say something?" She called out.

She was thrilled when she saw some shifting on Ruby's bed, and then girl glanced down at her, "What's up?" It was her usual greeting, but there was no warmth behind it – no life. She just looked dead-eyed, and Weiss swallowed a lump in her throat as she stared.

"Ruby… I met with Professor Ozpin today, he wanted to talk to Blake and I about what to do from now on." Weiss explained. Ruby didn't make any effort to say anything, so she continued, "He… He asked if we wanted to be moved to a different team."

Ruby blinked, and averted her eyes, "Oh…"

"I'm staying here," Weiss replied quickly, "But… Blake's gone."

"I see…" Ruby muttered, looking away, and then she fell back on her bed again.

"Ruby…" Weiss frowned, trying to think of something to say, "Are you…" What, okay? Of course she wasn't ok! What could she say or do to make things better though?! She thought long and hard about how she usually dealt with things, but again, nothing was coming up. "Well, I guess we should go to bed."

She let out a defeated sigh as she marched over to her bed and sat on the sheets, glancing at her dresser. She had to get dressed for bed, and while she used to go into the bathroom to change, that wasn't a problem anymore. Ruby wouldn't move from her bed, so Weiss had plenty of privacy just changing into her pajamas right there. She wondered briefly if she should go get some food, but shrugged it off, deciding that she wasn't very hungry.

She just felt empty as she lied down on her bed and starred up at the top bunk. Another restless night it was then… She turned onto her side, and tried to get to sleep. It was a futile effort, and she stayed awake for hours, her thoughts twisting and turning in her head, causing more and more worry with each passing second. She was so deep in thought that she nearly missed the sound of Ruby climbing down from her bed.

Ruby was probably heading to the bathroom, so Weiss didn't bother to say anything, and just tried to get to sleep. As expected, Weiss heard the sound of the bathroom door shutting, proving her guess correct. Minutes ticked on, and Weiss started to wonder just how long Ruby was going to stay in there for. Usually she was in there for ten minutes at the most, and then she was out, but right now… She shifted in her bed, and looked at the bathroom door. Ruby was taking quite a while.

Another ten minutes…

Weiss glanced at her scroll on her dresser, checking the time. Ruby was taking an unusually long time in the bathroom, and it was honestly beginning to concern her. Still, it really wasn't her business, so she tried to close her eyes and get back to sleep.

Ten more minutes.

Weiss couldn't sleep, and now she was worried. Letting out a sigh, she flung her legs over her bed, and stood up, taking large strides over to the bathroom. She didn't know why she was doing this, but better safe than sorry, right? She knocked on the door, "Ruby, are you alright? You've been in there for a while." Another knock, "Ruby?"

Ruby hadn't been the most responsive person this week, but she would usually answer if she was persistent about getting an answer from her, but now… Fear gripped Weiss's heart, but she forced herself to take a deep breath. "Ruby. If you don't answer me, I'm going to open the door." She placed her hand on the doorknob, waiting for Ruby's reply so she could just turn around and try to sleep. Unfortunately, no reply ever came, so she took another deep breath, and twisted the doorknob.

Red.

Red covered the sink and on the floor and… Wait. No, that's… Blood. Weiss's eyes widened as she saw Ruby collapsed on the floor, her arms held out in front of her, and she could see several deep cuts in her wrists. Ruby's head was against the floor, her eyes closed, and Weiss could see flashbacks of when Yang died – except this time, instead of Yang lying on the ground, it was Ruby. She stared for what seemed like years, looking at the blood oozing out of her wound, and seeing the red drip onto the floor.

She kicked into action immediately, rushing over to Ruby's side and kneeling beside her, not caring at all that she was getting blood on her night gown. "Fuck! Ruby! What were you thinking?!" She exclaimed, looking fearfully at the girl, "Please… Please be breathing…" She pressed her finger against Ruby's neck, and felt a pulse, and she nearly cried out in joy when she felt it. "Not yet… We have work to do…" She mumbled, looking around the room.

The razor Ruby used – how did she get her hands on that? – was drenched in blood, and lay on the ground only a few inches away from Ruby's open hand. Weiss picked it up and immediately threw it into the trash, and then she got a towel, wetting it in the sink, and brought it down to Ruby's wrists, both of which had been cut up. Wiping away the blood, she was glad to see that the cuts didn't look anywhere near as deep as they initially appeared, but they were still bleeding quite badly, so she applied pressure to her wrists.

"Weiss…?" Ruby mumbled, her eyes opening slightly as she looked up at the girl, "What… Are you doing?"

"What am I doing?" Weiss asked, her lips trembling in rage, "You – HOW DARE YOU ASK ME THAT!" She screamed at the girl, causing Ruby to wince, "What the fuck are you doing?!" She cried out, "You – You tried to kill yourself! You idiotic dolt! Why would you do that?!"

Ruby closed her eyes, "Because… I'm not a good team leader." She mumbled, "I got Yang killed, and now Blake is leaving us, and I can't do anything about it… I'm worthless…"

"So you tried to kill yourself?!" Weiss exclaimed yet again, "Ruby! You – ugh!" She closed her eyes tightly, trying in vain to fight the tears, "Do you know how scared I was?!"

"Why?" Ruby asked, pissing Weiss off with how genuinely confused she sounded.

"Why?! Because you're my friend! If you died how do you think I would feel?" Weiss asked, "We already lost Yang, we can't lose you too!"

"But I'm worthless…" Ruby repeated, "I – I can't do anything right…"

Weiss continued to wipe away the blood, and got up to get some gauze quickly from the supply cabinet above their sink, she also made sure to grab some hydrogen peroxide, and she went back to Ruby's side. "You're hardly worthless Ruby, you're just going through a lot right now. You'll be fine, but you can't do this to yourself!"

"But it's all my fault… Everything is my fault! Yang shouldn't have died… It's all because of me!" Ruby whimpered, wincing as Weiss poured some hydrogen peroxide on her wounds. "I killed her!"

"Ruby! You. Did. Not. Kill. Her." Weiss growled out each word, "Do you understand?"

"No…" Ruby cried, "She's dead because of me…"

"Did you stab your scythe through her while we weren't looking?" Weiss asked, wiping away the peroxide as the bubbling began to die down, "Did you do that to her?"

"No, but –"

"No, shut up, Ruby." Weiss spoke gently, "She voluntarily did that for you. Yes, you made a mistake, but Yang could have not jumped in front of you and took the blow and instead let you die – she did it because she loved you."

"But if I was never in that position, this wouldn't have happened…"

"But you WERE in that position, stop thinking about other scenarios of what could have happened! If Yang didn't save you, do you think she'd be alright with that? Do you think she'd be just fine?" she let the question sink in, and shook her head, "She'd be doing the EXACT same thing you are doing now, moping around and whining!"

Ruby lifted her arms and covered her eyes, crossing her arms over her face, "But… I… I miss her so much… It's just like with mom…"

There was the mention of her mother again, and Weiss gently grabbed one of Ruby's arms and started to wrap gauze around it, "So you're going to kill yourself?" Weiss asked.

"I – I can't handle this anymore," Ruby cried, "I don't want to feel guilty anymore, I just want it all to stop!"

"So you're going to make your sister's sacrifice completely in vain?" Weiss asked, speaking harsher than she would have liked, but it did get Ruby to stop crying, if only for a brief second.

"I still see it every time I close my eyes," Ruby muttered, tears pouring from her eyes as Weiss finished wrapping her other wrist in gauze, "I see her dying with that Grimm's hand through her no matter what, and I can feel the blood on me still… It's all over me…" She looked at her hands, and then scratched at her face, "It never goes away, no matter what I do…"

Weiss was confused by the abrupt change in subject, but that was the most she heard Ruby say in over a week, so she allowed the girl to continue to talk, "There's nothing there, Ruby." She told the girl quietly.

"No… There is," Ruby insisted, "I can feel it all over me! Yang's mad at me! She didn't want to die, and now she won't let me forget!"

"Calm down," Weiss muttered, helping the girl sit up, "It's not Yang coming back to haunt you or anything like that. If anything, I think she would come back to try and cheer you up." Weiss attempted to smile, but Ruby still looked downtrodden.

"I'm so sorry…" Ruby cried, wiping her eyes, "I just want to it all to stop, I want it to end…" Her hands started twitching, and they felt around the floor, "I want it to end."

Weiss's eyes narrowed, and she gripped Ruby's hand tightly in her own, "Stop." She commanded, and Ruby did as instructed, "You will NOT be cutting yourself anymore, do you understand?"

"But… Soon… I'll be all alone… Mom left me… Yang left me… Blake left me, and soon you will too, and I'll be alone." Her bottom lip trembled, and she bit it to try and stop crying, but it was absolutely no use.

"I'm not going to leave," Weiss whispered to her, "Didn't you hear what I said earlier today? I refused to go to a different team, I _want_ to stay with you."

Ruby paused, and then looked up at Weiss with wide tear-stained and hopeful eyes, "R – Really?"

"Of course, you dolt! I don't want anyone else in this school to be my partner!" She exclaimed, gently flicking her on the forehead, "Besides, I wouldn't give up on you that easily, so I'd appreciate it if you thought a _little_ bit higher of me too."

Ruby's mouth moved upward into a grin, despite her tears, "F – For real?"

"Yes!" Weiss exclaimed in exasperation, "I really, really mean it! Get that through your thick skull!"

"Thank you…" Ruby muttered, her smile falling as more tears fell down her face, "I – I don't know if I can b – be there for you though, I…" She started crying aloud again, covering her eyes yet again, "I don't know what to do now…"

"For now you should go to bed," Weiss replied, "Can you stand?"

"I'm not tired," Ruby muttered childishly, sitting on the bathroom floor, "Just go on without me. I'll go to bed when I feel like it."

A small flash of anger caused Weiss to grip Ruby's hand, and yank her forward, "Do you think of me as an idiot, Ruby Rose? You want me to leave you in here so you can just cut yourself again?"

Ruby looked aside guiltily, "I…"

"Listen to me," Weiss got her attention, "You are all that I have left now."

There was a very pregnant pause as both girls just stared at one another. Ruby looked at her with a mixture of surprise and disbelief, and Weiss felt her cheeks burning up as she realized just what she said. Still, Weiss didn't allow herself to hesitate any longer, and she pulled Ruby upward and onto her feet. "D – Do you really mean that?" Ruby asked, her eyes still focused intently on Weiss, the most focused she'd been ever since the incident.

Weiss nodded, "My team's all that mattered to me… I – I never got along with my family, and my parents were never really in my life, so…" She shrugged, "You guys were the first people I got to know, and I got attached… Now Yang's gone, and Blake doesn't want to associate with us anymore… you're the only one left. If something were to happen to you, or if I had to go on without you, I don't know what I would do."

"Weiss…" Ruby muttered, "I… I'm sorry…"

"It's alright," Weiss murmured, "I understand."

"What should I do?" Ruby asked.

"I don't know," Weiss answered honestly, "We should just go to bed now, ok? I'm not going to leave you in here alone, no matter what."

"Ok." Ruby replied, allowing Weiss to drag her out of the bathroom and into their room. They were quiet as they wandered over to their bunk, and Ruby looked hesitantly up at her own bunk, and started shaking.

"Ruby?"

"It's nothing," She lied.

Weiss wished that were the case, but given the fact that Ruby was starting to cry again, she knew something was up. It would be so easy to ignore it, but she'd learned over the past week that ignoring things tended to make them worse, so she put her hand on Ruby's shoulder, and asked again, "What's wrong. Please. Tell me."

Ruby opened her mouth, and all that came out was a small whimper, "I… I'm sorry, I'm…" She wiped her eyes, "It's nothing."

"Look…" Weiss tried to think of something to say, "How about you sleep with me tonight? Will that make you feel better?" She asked, and she was astonished at how quickly Ruby nodded in agreement, "Then… Ok." She felt awkward as she got into her bed, and Ruby crawled in right behind her, and she felt even more incredibly awkward as Ruby gripped her arm like a lifeline, holding it tightly to herself as she tried not to cry.

"Thank you," Ruby managed to whimper out, still softly crying.

"It's not a problem," Weiss lied. Honestly, she was glad that this way it was fairly easy to keep tabs on Ruby, but on the other hand, she doubted she was going to get any sleep tonight with how Ruby was softly crying and holding her. Now Ruby was practically wrapping her entire body around hers in a hug. She wanted to lash out and tell Ruby to stop, but she knew that Ruby thrived on personal contact with people, and without her sister there to help her through this, it fell on her to help Ruby now.

She tried not to sigh as she worried about how she would do anything tomorrow after a night of no sleep, but… She yawned, Ruby's warmth certainly felt very nice at least. She glanced at Ruby, whose eyes were struggling to stay open, and she seemed to be losing the fight with sleep. Not even a couple of minutes later, Ruby was fast asleep, still holding onto her like her life depended on it.

Weiss just looked at Ruby's face, and felt her own eyes drifting close… Too bad she wasn't going to get sleep, because… This actually felt pretty nice. She closed her eyes.

Sleep came _far_ easier than she expected.

XxXxXxX

Ruby opened her eyes, blinking a few times to clear them, and she noticed she was looking right at Weiss's face. There was a momentary panic as she tried to recall just _why_ Weiss was in the same bed as her, but then the last night came flooding back in her mind, and she felt tears coming to her eyes – Weiss saw her attempting to commit suicide, that's right… And then afterwards, before they went to bed, Ruby asked to sleep with her, desperately not wanting to be alone, and amazingly the usually stuck-up girl agreed.

All of that had somehow led to her sleeping like a rock. Perhaps it was only exhaustion from weeks of getting only a couple of hours of sleep, but even then, having someone who cared so much about her being with her did wonders for her. Holding Weiss reminded her of when Yang would always be there when she cried after her mother died, and how often they'd sleep together then too…

… And now Yang was dead, and Weiss was doing the exact same thing for her. She bit her bottom lip as tears gently cascaded down her face, not wanting to alert or wake up Weiss beside her. She lifted up an arm to wipe away her tears, and she spotted the bandages that Weiss wrapped around her wrists. She just stared for the longest time, realizing that it was going to scar, and people would always know what she tried to do…

Even worse than that though was the urge to go back into the bathroom and go through with it this time, despite knowing that Weiss didn't want her to go through with it… Despite knowing that Weiss depended on her. She felt a crushing guilt, and looked away from the heiress's face, not wanting to feel this immense guilt. Slowly she got out of the bed, and looked out the window, seeing the sun steadily beginning to rise.

"What are you doing?" Weiss asked, causing Ruby to jump, "You've better not be planning to do anything stupid again."

Ruby glanced back at Weiss, and her voice got caught in her throat. She wanted to say something to her – _lie_ to her that she wasn't even thinking about it, but nothing came out. She felt like she had no control of her body, and she just started to tremble again, "I…" She couldn't form any coherent words, and just started to cry again. She tried to wipe her tears, but they wouldn't leave.

"It's alright, it'll be ok." Weiss whispered to her, she touched Ruby's arm, and that seemed to calm Ruby down.

Ruby stopped shaking, and she nodded, "I know… I know."

"So…" Weiss sat on the edge of the bed, just watching Ruby now, "What do you want to do today?"

"Don't you have classes to go to?" Ruby asked instead, wiping her eyes of the tears that still remained.

Weiss slowly nodded, but then she just shrugged, "I can miss a day or two of classes."

Ruby looked back towards her with wide eyes, "You're skipping?"

"Why do you sound so surprised? You've been doing it for over a week now." Weiss replied casually, leaning back on her bed, and she absently noted that there was still some dried blood on her night gown.

"But… You never miss class for anything." Ruby muttered, "Don't miss it on my account."

Weiss sighed, "Ruby, this is a bit more important than classes, don't you think?"

"What is?"

"Don't play dumb," Weiss snapped, "You need help, and do you honestly think I'm going to leave you alone after that stunt you pulled last night? If you honestly think that, then you're a bigger idiot than I initially thought!"

"Why don't you just tell Ozpin about it?" Ruby looked down at her wrapped up wrists, and frowned, "I think if he knew what I tried to do, he'd pull me from school immediately…"

"Did you listen to _anything_ I said last night?" Weiss asked, but Ruby could see that the heiress was visibly restraining herself from saying anything harsher than that, "I know you're going through a lot, but you mean a lot to me, and I want to stay as your partner."

Ruby felt butterflies welling up in her stomach, and she averted her eyes with a light flush on her check, "You… Actually meant that?"

"Of course I did! Do you think I'd say something like that and _not_ mean it?!" Weiss exclaimed. She rolled her eyes and stood up, "Anyway, I'm going to change."

"I thought you said you weren't going to go to classes." Ruby pointed out.

"That's true, but I refuse to be cooped up in this room all day. You have to be tired of all of this too, right?" She waved her hand around their dorm, "You haven't left this place in ever since the mission, don't you want to stretch your legs?"

"I… I don't know." Ruby muttered, standing up and looking out the window.

"Are you afraid or something?" Weiss asked as got up and dug through her dresser for some clothing, "No one's going to hurt you, if that's got you worried."

"What about these?" She lifted up her wrists, "I – I don't want people seeing this." She muttered fearfully, "And I don't want to hear people talking about me. What if they say something about me?"

"Then you ignore it." Weiss replied, "Look. I'm not going to lie. People have heard about what happened, and they know you've been alone in here for a while, so a lot of people probably _will _talk about you when they see you, but that can change over time."

Ruby hugged herself, and looked fearfully at Weiss, "I don't know… I just want to be alone…"

"Enough lying," Weiss replied, walking right up to Ruby and flicking her on the forehead, "What will you do if I leave you alone, huh? Will you just stay in your bed and cry all day? Do you _really_ want to do that?"

"Shut up!" Ruby cried, stepping back from Weiss, "Why do you care?!"

Weiss rubbed her forehead, "Alright. If you don't want to go out, then I won't force you, but I think it's a good idea." She walked pass Ruby, "In any rate, I'm going to go take a shower. You just stay out here and decide on what you really want to do."

Ruby just sat back down on Weiss's bed, and grit her teeth as more tears just seemed to come out of her eyes. For the past week, it seemed like all she could do was cry, and honestly she was beginning to get tired of it. Ruby wanted to go and do something, but every time she tried, the horrible guilt of what she did to Yang would come back, followed up quickly by a horrible fear of how others saw her now… They all probably thought she murdered Yang herself. No doubt they would whisper about her and hate her.

Weiss would be there though, and she trusted her more than anyone else in her life right now, especially after she tearfully saved her last night. She didn't know how honest Weiss was when it came to how she felt last night, but it all certainly seemed genuine, and Ruby could really use someone who cared about her right now. "I won't push her away…" She decided quietly to herself.

Nearly a half hour later, Weiss came out of the bathroom, and she looked to Ruby. "You can take a shower now. Make sure to wash your wrists, and to make sure you don't do anything stupid, I'm going to be in there waiting at the sink."

"But -!" Ruby's eyes widened and a blush crossed her cheeks.

"Just go in the shower and take your clothes off in there and give them to me, and I'll get you something to wear. Don't worry, it'll have long sleeves – that is, of course, if you want to leave the room today." Weiss explained.

"I – I do." Ruby nodded her head, and she saw a glimmer of approval in Weiss's eyes, "Can we get something to eat first?"

"Yeah, sure, but I'm not going anywhere with you while you smell this bad, so you're going to take a shower." Weiss followed Ruby into the bathroom, and she just stared at her.

"You… You weren't serious about being in here while I'm showering, were you?" Ruby asked.

"Why would I lie?" Weiss asked, sounding more annoyed than anything, "Now get in the shower and throw me your clothes when you get them off. Don't worry, I won't look!"

"But this is really embarrassing!" Ruby exclaimed, her cheeks turning even brighter red, "I don't need you to babysit me!"

"Oh? These past ten days say otherwise, and after last night I'm not going to let you be in here alone no matter what you say, so go!" Weiss ushered Ruby into the shower stall, and then closed the screen door.

Ruby wanted to be mad at Weiss for forcing her to do something like this, but another part of her was secretly glad that Weiss was going through this much trouble for her. The reasons were twofold: First, she still had a small part of her mind saying to go through with what she tried to do last night, and with Weiss here, that part of her mind was effectively nullified. Secondly, and more importantly, it truly showed how much Weiss truly cared about her that she was going through all of this trouble for her.

She took off her clothes, and then opened the screen very slightly to give her tank-top and pajama pants to Weiss, and then she shut the screen door immediately. She still had a small blush on her cheeks as she turned on the water, and started to clean herself. She made sure to wash her eyes and face to rid herself of the remaining tears and to try and get the puffiness of her eyes to go down some, and then she started to wash her wrists gently, her mood dropping significantly as she saw how horrible the cuts were on her.

Three straight cuts across her wrist on her right arm, and five on her left wrist. It was easier to hold the razor with her dominant hand, hence more cuts on her left arm. She felt like crying, realizing that these marks would never leave her for the rest of her life, but she pushed aside her sadness for now, and washed them, wincing as the water cleaned the wound. After lathering her hair with shampoo and cleaning it, and then getting her entire body washed, she went to leave, but then she noticed blood still on her hands.

Yang's blood… For some reason, it refused to go away. She tried in vain to scrub it away, but her hands were still red no matter what she did. She tried over and over, but nothing worked. She clenched her hands shut, and grit her teeth as she started to recall the horrible memories yet again… Holding Yang's body, crying out her name… Yang's death was all her fault… Why did it have to happen?

"Ruby? You almost done?"

Ruby snapped out of her thoughts, and saw that the blood was now gone, and she let out a sigh of relief. It would reappear soon enough, since it never truly went away, but for now at least she could leave the shower. "Um… Did you get my clothes?"

"I'm holding them right here," Weiss confirmed, "Turn the water off and I'll hand you a towel so you can dry yourself, and then I'll give you the clothes."

"This is making things so much more complicated then they need to be," Ruby complained, but she turned the shower off regardless, and opened the screen door a crack and held out her hand. She felt Weiss put a towel in her hand, and soon she was drying off. Minutes later, she finally left the shower fully clothed, and true to Weiss's words, she wore a long-sleeve shirt to hide her wrists.

"Give me your hands," Weiss said as Ruby got closer to the sink, "We need to put some gauze over the wounds just in case." Ruby complied, and soon she had two new bandages wrapping around her damaged wrists, "Feel better?"

"Yeah," Ruby answered truthfully, "Better than I have in a few days."

"I can tell," Weiss replied, "You've talked more today than you have all week… It's honestly quite refreshing."

Ruby frowned, "I'm sorry…"

"None of that," Weiss waved it off, "You're hungry, right? We ought to go get something to eat, and then we can plan on what to do from there, does that sound good to you?" She walked towards the door and opened it up to their dorm room, and Ruby followed right behind her.

"Y – Yeah…" Ruby muttered, a big lump forming inside of her as they walked towards the door leading out into the hall.

Weiss seemed to catch her worried expression, because she held out her hand, "Will this make it easier for you?"

Ruby gratefully took the girl's hand, and the feeling lessened somewhat. She didn't expect it to go away completely, but again, it was nice to be with someone who cared. It reminded her of her first day of attending Beacon, when she had no friends and wanted to stay with Yang… She immediately stopped thinking of that. "This will make it a little easier, thank you."

"Then let's go." Weiss replied, opening the door and leading Ruby through the halls.


	3. Chapter 3

If the situation wasn't so awful and depressing, Weiss would say that Ruby was adorable in how timid she was behaving. She was holding onto Weiss's hand tightly the entire day, avoiding eye contact with everyone, and during breakfast she only ate a small amount of food, while glancing around the entire room, jumping at every single noise. It was cute, but it was also sad.

Ruby wasn't usually like this. Where was the strong girl who would always walk ahead of them confidently, usually running down the halls and laughing childishly as she greeted everyone along her path? This girl, though finally starting to recover was still only a shell of the Ruby she knew. They left the cafeteria early, since Weiss could see how uncomfortable Ruby was becoming as the early crowd started to arrive.

She knew Ruby wouldn't attend classes, especially not with how she behaved around crowds, so she just walked with Ruby around the grounds of the academy. A part of her mind was yelling at her to attend class, that a Schnee needed to never be tardy or miss an appointment, but she shut that part of her mind up when she looked at Ruby. Ruby was her friend, and there was no way in hell she was going to leave her alone.

"What should we do?" Ruby asked absently as they sat on a bench outside of the school.

"I don't know," Weiss replied, "What do you want to do?"

"You went through all of this effort to get me out of the room, and you didn't even plan what we should do once you got me out?" A small smile appeared on her face, and Weiss could see a glimmer of the Ruby she knew appearing, "That's pretty sloppy for you."

Weiss reached over and flicked her on the forehead, "Whatever. Getting you out was the real goal anyway, everything else isn't important."

Ruby rubbed her forehead, and her eyes wandered the sidewalk until they widened. Weiss noticed right away, and looked towards where Ruby was, and her heart sunk – oh no, not right now. She felt Ruby stand beside her, and she got up as well, and she followed Ruby as her team leader rushed towards Blake, who was walking with her back turned towards them. Weiss wanted to stop Ruby somehow, but it was too late.

"Blake!" Ruby called, "Blake, hey, wait up!"

Blake stopped in her walk, and turned to see Ruby rushing towards her. Weiss saw her eyes narrow into a glare, but the look quickly disappeared, and she had a neutral look on her face yet again as she and Ruby made their way to her. "You're finally out of your room." Blake commented softly, "That's good."

Weiss knew the words weren't genuine, and she didn't even bother hiding her glare, "Yeah, no thanks to you."

Ruby gave Weiss a quick glance, and Weiss could see that Ruby appeared to be becoming more and more like her old self. She eyed Blake angrily, if she _dared_ to ruin this development, she'd better hope that some god will protect her. "Blake," Ruby looked down, "I… I heard you requested to switch teams."

"I did." Blake replied, betraying no emotion.

"Why?" Ruby asked.

"I just feel that being on this team will be detrimental to my continued development as a Huntress." She replied easily, answering the question like she would on a test. "If I want to continue growing and improving, I think it'll be best if I move on."

Weiss was impressed with what she was saying, but she knew it was all a big lie. She saw every day how Blake glared towards Ruby's bed, and she knew that she blamed Ruby for Yang's death. She didn't vocalize any of this though, because honestly, having Blake off of their team was a good thing, as far as she was concerned. She liked Blake at one point, but after seeing how she acted now, especially towards Ruby these last few days, Blake quickly fell out of her favor.

"Blake, I don't want you to switch teams," Ruby replied, shaking her head, "We already lost one person, I don't want to lose you too…"

"_We_ already lost one?" Blake muttered, "Don't put this on me or Weiss -"

"Don't bring me into this!" Weiss exclaimed immediately, "I'm not on your side here, Blake!"

"Fine, whatever!" Blake shook her head, "My point is that _we_ didn't lose one – _you_ did."

Ruby looked hurt, her eyes widening as tears began to form at the brim of her eyes. "I – I know…" She agreed easily. Weiss was about to say something, but Ruby shook her head, "No, Weiss, she's right, I screwed up."

"At least she's willing to acknowledge it," Blake pointedly looked towards Weiss.

Weiss took a menacing step forward, "How dare you say something like that!"

"Weiss, it's ok!" Ruby exclaimed, "It's fine."

"It's fine? What's fine? Are you just going to let her get away with saying this shit to you?!" She growled, glancing down at Ruby and noticing her tears, "It's _not_ your fault."

"It is." Blake countered immediately.

Weiss was a proud woman – a proud Huntress. She attended Beacon Academy so she could defend the weak and innocent from the onslaught of the Grimm. She prided herself on her self-restrain, her strength, and her ability to remain logical in all situations. Somehow, all of that training, all of that self-taught restraint, and her logic flew out the window as she took a step forward and swung her open palm at Blake as quickly as she could, causing a very loud SMACK to sound throughout the area.

Blake's head snapped to the side, and her cheek was beginning to already turn a deep shade of red. She reached up, as if she was incapable of accepting the fact that Weiss of all people would do that, and then she turned her head back towards Weiss, blinking a few times in confusion. "Y – You hit me!" She couldn't help but exclaim.

"And I'll do it again if you don't shut the fuck up." Weiss replied, her heart beating against her ribs like nothing else, "Do you honestly believe you're the only one suffering right now?"

"Yang was _my_ partner!" Blake argued, stepping forward, "She was my best friend – one of the only friends I've ever had in my life – and she's DEAD because of Ruby!" She pointed her hand at Ruby, glaring horribly at the girl, "There's nothing you can say that can make me change my mind on this!"

"Yang was _my_ friend too!" Weiss cried, "And Ruby was her _sister_ you thick-skulled idiot!"

"Guys!" Ruby got between them, and pushed them away from each other, "Stop fighting!"

"Shut up Ruby!" Weiss growled, "I'm not going to let her say this to you!"

"And she got her killed!" Blake argued right back.

"You insufferable little!" Weiss was about to say more, but she heard the soft sounds of Ruby crying, and she looked to the side where Ruby stood, wiping her eyes, "Ruby…"

"Just stop it already!" She cried, "I understand why Blake doesn't want to come back, ok?" She looked towards Blake, her eyes still shining with tears, "I'm sorry for bothering you…"

Blake looked hesitantly at Ruby, and then back to Weiss, and then she turned on her heel quickly, practically running away, leaving the both of them alone. Weiss glared at her retreating form, before she turned back to Ruby with concern in her eyes. "Don't believe a word she said," Weiss muttered.

"No… She's right, I killed her…"

Weiss wanted to scream and pull her hair out – she _knew_ this was going to happen the moment they confronted Blake. This always seemed to happen, whenever something _good_ happened, something equally as bad must happen to ruin the good thing. Was there some sort of higher being just toying with them? She let out a sigh, and allowed her mind to take control again, putting her emotions back in check, "No. She's not." She repeated the phrase that was beginning to get stuck in her mind, "You didn't do it."

"You didn't do it."

"You didn't do it."

She wished that just once Ruby would believe her.

XxXxXxX

"I think I should go to class tomorrow," Ruby spoke aloud as the two prepared to sleep that night. It was already two days since the confrontation with Blake, and both of them hadn't seen her since then. Whether it was due to the fact that Blake was actively avoiding them, or if they just coincidentally didn't run into each other, Ruby didn't know, but she was secretly glad for it. She didn't know what she would do if she saw Blake again so soon after their last talk.

"Are you serious?" Weiss asked, glancing up from her dresser towards Ruby, who was relaxing on her bed, "You're willing to go?"

"Well… You've missed three days of classes already," Ruby replied, "I'd feel bad if you missed any more than that."

Inside, she was terrified of going back to class, of seeing all of those people. Claiming that she wanted to go for Weiss's sake was at least a way for her to attempt to rationalize it in her head, but even as the words left her mouth, she felt her heart beating quicker, and fear filling her mind with self-doubt and uncertainty. She took a deep breath, and tried to calm down.

Weiss stepped over and sat next to Ruby, "Are you sure?"

Ruby wanted so badly to say no, but she knew that she couldn't hide forever, not if she wanted to keep attending school, so she nodded, "Y – Yeah."

"Then we can go tomorrow morning, I'll set the alarm." Weiss stood up, and went to her scroll, entering in the time they'd need to wake up, and she set it down. "I'm glad that you're willing to do this."

Ruby nodded absently, and glanced down at her wrists, her lips forming a thin line as she tries to think of the best way to conceal them. Her usual uniform was long-sleeved, but even then, she was fearful that someone might see, and… There was so much blood on her hands… She needed to wash it off. She abruptly stood up, causing Weiss to glance at her, and she rushed into the bathroom, turning on the sink and trying to wash her hands.

No matter what she did, the blood wouldn't come off… Flashes of Yang's death played in her mind, her lilac eyes as they glazed over in death, blood pouring out of the wound from the Grimm's attack, her yellow hair mixing with the blood. It was all returning back to her. She poured a generous amount of soap on her hands, scrubbing her hands as hard and quickly as possible, dearly trying to get the blood off.

"I'm so sorry," She mumbled as she tried to wash off the blood, "I'm sorry Yang…"

"Ruby." Weiss reached over and turned off the faucet, "There's nothing there."

"But there's so much blood." She looked at her hands, and saw it dripping off, "I need it to go away."

"Ruby," Weiss commanded, using her 'heiress' voice, as Ruby liked to think of it, "Take a deep breath, and then let it out."

Ruby closed her eyes and did as she was instructed, taking a deep breath, and then letting it out. She did it several times, and then opened her eyes again, seeing her palms clean of all the blood. "It's gone." She sighed, feeling relief flooding through her.

"It was never there," Weiss muttered, "Come on, we need to go to bed if we want to be well rested for class tomorrow. You're still interested in attending, right?"

Ruby numbly looked at Weiss, and nodded, "Yes."

"Good." Weiss grabbed Ruby's hand, and gently pulled her back into the room, "Are you okay with sleeping alone tonight?"

"N – No…" Ruby shook her head.

A soft sigh, "Very well."

The two of them got into the same bed as each other, and Ruby gripped Weiss tightly, fear of the next day, and her self-doubts coming to haunt her. Every time she closed her eyes, she could already see every scenario of how the following day could screw up – people were going to point at her and call her a monster, a murderer, and they were going to force her to pay for what she did… She wouldn't be surprised if the professors supported them in their acts either.

"Ruby, calm down. You're breathing fast." Ruby opened her eyes, and locked onto Weiss's blue eyes, "You'll be fine. I'll be there with you, ok?"

Ruby was still afraid, but she nodded. Weiss would be there for her like she always was. She closed her eyes with that knowledge, and having the girl in her grasp somehow managed to keep the demons away that night.

XxXxXxX

Weiss felt nervous as she and Ruby walked together towards their first class – Grimm Studies with Professor Port. Both of them were holding their books, and walking to class significantly earlier than the rest of their classmates, mostly so Ruby would be more comfortable walking in the halls, since there would be less people around. Neither of them spoke a single word to another, and they sat next to each other at the front of the class. Glancing at Ruby, she could already tell the girl was fidgeting, and it only grew worse as more and more people came in.

She spotted Blake from the corner of her eye, and noticed that the cat Faunus saw the immediately, and made sure to sit as far as possible from the two of them. Well, that solve that – the girl was avoiding them. Not that she really cared, but it was nice to have confirmation. The next few people did glance towards her and Ruby, but none of them commented about it or seemed to care… So far so good.

She looked to Ruby, and saw the girl had her eyes closed. "Are you alright," Weiss asked quietly.

"Yes." Ruby's reply was curt, but she saw the silver-eyed girl open her eyes back up and stare straight ahead. A small grin broke out on Weiss's face, since Ruby was facing this challenge head on and not backing down, something the Ruby from before would always do.

"Hey Ruby!" Both girls nearly jumped out of their skin as Nora seemed to teleport right at Ruby's side, and she wrapped the girl in a hug, "I missed you so much!"

Ruby was very stiff initially, and her eyes were wide, but eventually she calmed down, and a small smile graced her face as she wrapped her arms around Nora, "Hey, Nora, I missed you too." She spoke quietly, but it was good to hear Ruby talking to others normally, Weiss decided.

"Ruby," Ren walked up next to Nora, and he bowed his head towards her in greeting. He then turned to Weiss, and tilted his head forward towards her as well. Weiss returned the gesture, and Ren turned back to Ruby, "Nora's right, we've all missed you. It's good to see you up and about now."

"Yeah," Ruby replied, nodding towards him, still holding Nora, "Um, Nora?"

"What?" The clueless girl let go of Ruby, but still had a tight grip on her shoulders, "Is something wrong?"

Ren pulled Nora back gently, causing the girl to topple away, "Nothing's wrong, you're just way too friendly."

"But it's Ruby!" Nora cried, as if that explained everything.

Jaune and Pyrrha came over a few moments later, "It's great to see you recovering, Ruby!" Pyrrha exclaimed, giving the girl a wide smile, "I knew you had it in you!"

Ruby's responding smile was genuine, Weiss noticed in surprise, and she couldn't help but feel a small smile form on her own lips. "Thank you, Pyrrha." Ruby replied happily.

"Hey Ruby," Jaune waved casually at her, and then he noticed Weiss and gave her a goofy smile, "Hey Weiss. You've been MIA the past few days."

"I've been a bit busy with some things." Weiss replied easily, crossing her arms over her chest.

He eyed Ruby, and Weiss had to give the boy points for being quick on the uptake. Usually he was clueless when it came to something like this, but she supposed that cluelessness only extended towards women, he had to be good at _something_ after all, since he was a team leader. "Yeah, well, I'm glad that you're here Ruby."

"I'm glad too," Ruby replied, answering his grin with a wide smile of her own, "It's been way too long since I last saw you guys!"

Weiss hardly talked with them as they all gathered around Ruby and just talked to her, breaking her out of the shell she built around herself, and making her behave more and more like the older Ruby by the second. Sure, Ruby was still very subdued, and was much quieter than before, but she was smiling and laughing along with her friends. If this is all it took to make Ruby change back to how she was before, she should have done this days ago…

… Well, actually, Jaune did say something about this, didn't he? She frowned, remembering how she ignored him completely. To be fair, she was quite upset when he talked to her, but it didn't necessarily give her the right to act like she did. She resolved then and there to sometime apologize to him, and she looked towards him with an apologetic smile.

He noticed it immediately, and he just gave the slightest of nods her way, before he resumed talking to Ruby. Weiss just stared in shock – how in the world could such a clueless guy have noticed such a gesture? Did he understand that she was sorry? She pinched the bridge of her nose, and decided not to think about it, it was hardly worth the headache. She was glad though, and returned to observing Ruby chuckling after a joke Nora told her.

"Alright class!" Professor Port waddled out in front of the class, and looked them over, "If you could please get into your seats so we can begin!"

Nora sat beside Ruby with Ren at her side, while Jaune and Pyrrha went to sit at an adjacent spot. Again, Weiss was struck by how thoughtful they were being, allowing Nora and Ren to be nearby, giving Ruby some more friends to support her in her time of need. She looked back forward, and started to listen as Port began his lecture, or, she supposed, more accurately, his wildly made up story of his times as a Huntsman.

Still, in each story he told, there were at least some snippets of good advice and lessons to be learned, so Weiss did her best to try and pick them out among everything else, and write them down in her notebook. It was difficult to take notes though, since she kept hearing Ruby and Nora besides her giggling up a storm, and they'd stop every time Professor Port looked in their direction, only to resume again once he was looking away and talking about some random story yet again.

Normally she would be upset, and she was getting a little annoyed, but it was such a huge relief to see Ruby acting like herself again that she just let it slide. She'd have to go over her notes with Ruby after class, but at this rate, she was sure that Ruby was going to recover in time to keep attending Beacon and stay as her partner.

"And that's all for this class," Professor Port stopped his ramblings and looked at his scroll, "I'll let you leave early, and please note that there's going to be a test next week on Monday, so use this upcoming weekend to study!" With that, the class was dismissed, and everyone started getting up and chatting with their friends, going to the next class.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Nora shot up to her feet, "Ms. Goodwitch's class is next!" She looked excitedly down to Ruby, who was only just starting to get up, "Come on!"

Ruby stood, and glanced back towards Weiss, "We don't have our weapons…"

Weiss frowned – why was Ruby acting like this _now_? She seemed to be just fine during the lecture, "We can just go to our room and fetch them," Weiss replied, "It'll only take a few minutes, so we'll have plenty of time before class."

"O – Ok." Ruby muttered her reply, and she looked towards Nora now, a smile on her face, but Weiss could clearly see that it didn't reach the girl's eyes, "I'll be right there, just save a seat for me, ok?"

"Yeah!" Nora exclaimed, and she excitedly walked off, leaving behind Ren, who just shook his head at the girl's antics. He then looked at Ruby, giving her a long look, before he too finally left, leaving Weiss and Ruby alone.

The walk back to their room was quick, and as soon as they entered, Ruby looked towards her fearfully, "Do you think I'll have to fight?" She asked in such a small voice that Weiss could hardly hear her words, "I don't want to fight…"

"What?" Weiss's eyebrows shot up, "But you love to fight."

"I know, but…" She glanced at Crescent Rose, where it leaned against the wall for days without Ruby ever touching it. Usually she would clean it daily, so to see it gathering dust was odd, and Weiss only _now_ realized the significance of it.

"You're afraid to fight?" Weiss asked, seeing Ruby guiltily look away, "But we're Huntresses Ruby, we _have_ to fight."

"I know, but every time I look at my weapon, it just reminds me of her…" She shivered, and glanced at Crescent Rose, just staring at the weapon for the longest time.

Weiss walked over to the weapon, and went to lift it up, but grunted in surprise – the damn thing was heavy! She managed it though, lifting it with one hand like Ruby often did, and she walked over to Ruby with it, "I'll be with you, so it'll be fine, alright? If you're called to fight, then…" She paused – then what, exactly? "We'll cross that bridge when we get there," Weiss replied instead.

Ruby hesitantly reached out and gripped the handle of her weapon, taking it out of Weiss's hand slowly. She just looked at it like it was a deadly poison, but she swallowed her fear, and soon put it on her back where it belonged. Weiss smiled at her, and gave a small nod of approval, which Ruby returned shortly after, and soon the two left the room to head to the class. If they had _any_ luck, then Ruby wouldn't be called out to fight…

… Of course they had no luck.

Twenty minutes later, Ms. Goodwitch was calling out people to fight on the stage, and of course the first person she called for was Ruby, who looked towards Weiss with horror in her eyes.

"Ruby!" Goodwitch called again, "Please come up."

"Go," Weiss urged, "Just… Do what you always do." She felt as miserable as Ruby looked as she watched the girl go down to the stage, looking like a kicked puppy, and she just closed her eyes, hoping that everything would turn out fine.

"And who else…" Goodwitch eyed the crowd, and spotted one, "Jaune, it's been a while for you as well. Come down and face Ruby."

Weiss let out a relieved sigh. Out of everyone in the entire school to face Ruby, Jaune was probably the best pick simply due to how bad he was when it came to combat. Sure he improved over the years, but he never reached any of their levels, his skills laid more in his defensive abilities and tactical mind, so his offensive power was rather weak. Putting all of that aside however, she knew that Jaune wouldn't go all out against Ruby, not when he was aware of what happened with her. Hopefully Ruby would be fine with facing a friend, rather than a random stranger.

XxXxXxX

"Ruby," Jaune glanced at her with worry visible in his eyes, "Are you gonna be ok?" His sword and shield were lowered to his sides as he watched Ruby quite literally shaking as she held her scythe, looking at him with wide and wild looking eyes.

"I'll be fine!" She nearly shouted. She glanced up into the students watching, and saw Weiss give her a concerned look, so she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Against any opponent it was a sign of weakness to do this, not to mention it was also an opening for attack, but she knew Jaune wouldn't take advantage of it. Her body's shaking stopped, and she tried to focus on the combat – it was just a friendly duel with Jaune, nothing more than that.

"Alright then," Jaune lifted his shield up, guarding him from the front, "Then we'll start whenever you're ready."

Ruby nodded, glad that he was giving her the initiative, and she gripped her scythe, her training coming back to her as she glanced back up towards him, and then in a second she was gone, using her semblance to cross the arena towards him in a blink of the human eye, and it was only because Jaune was familiar with her semblance and what she may do that he managed to block the attack with his shield in time, though the strong strike caused him to stumble back a few feet.

The exhilaration of combat began to flow through Ruby as she attacked Jaune from all angles, her heart beating quickly as she tried different ways to break his defenses. Over three years since Jaune attended the academy, he'd managed to unlock his semblance as well, which took the form of a shield that guarded from every angle whenever he activated it. The ability drained his aura like crazy, but he had enough aura to spare to use it regardless of the massive drain.

In Ruby's honest opinion, she thought it was broken as hell, but that made it _awesome_! She tried to strike at Jaune from the back, but his semblance easily blocked the attack and he twisted around to try and strike at her, but she quickly dodged the attack, trying to hit his opening, which again was easily blocked by his semblance. They both tried to hit each other a few more times, but it was a pointless endeavor – Jaune was an impenetrable defense, while Ruby was an unstoppable force, so they essentially nullified each other in a fight.

It was _fun_ though. It brought back all of the reasons she loved fighting and wanted to be a Huntress in the first place. She gasped for breath, and jumped away from Jaune briefly to catch her bearings, and she glanced at her scroll. They were both at roughly half-semblance now after only five minutes of fighting, but she knew that a lot of what they were doing was flashy and for show – Jaune would never drain his aura this quickly in a battle against Grimm, and she likewise would converse her aura for more important matters.

… _Like saving your sister?_

She faltered, the voice in her head causing her eyes to go wide. She tried to shaking it away, but the dread was creeping back up on her, and she looked down to her hands, and dropped her scythe – the blood, it was _everywhere_. She tried wiping it off her her clothes, but it wasn't going away no matter what she did… Why didn't it ever go away? Why, why, why, whyWHYWHY?!

"Ruby?" She looked up at the voice, and her voice got caught in her throat.

Yang was standing there, looking concerned for her little sister, and she took a step forward, "Ruby, what's wrong?"

"Y – Yang…" Ruby muttered, tears falling from her eyes as she took a step forward.

The image suddenly contorted, an ugly scowl crossing Yang's face and a huge bloody hole appearing in her chest, "You murderer," She whispered, glaring at Yang in an unfamiliar voice, "How could you let me die?"

"It was an accident… I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to let you die… Please, forgive me…"

Yang stumbled closer, and Ruby closed her eyes, averting her head away from the sight, and then she felt hands on her shoulders. She opened her eyes again, and saw Jaune shaking her, "Ruby! Ruby! What's wrong?"

She looked at his hair, and noticed that it was a similar shade to Yang's… Did she just hallucinate that? She fearfully looked down at her hands, and saw that the blood was gone now, and she glanced up at the students, seeing Weiss already rushing down to her. Ruby realized that she was crying, and she reached up to wipe away some tears, "I'm fine now, Jaune…" She mumbled, wondering for the first time if she was going insane.

"Jaune what did you do!" Weiss's anger could practically be felt by both Jaune and Ruby as she stomped over to Ruby's side.

"N – Nothing! We were just fighting and then…" Jaune glanced to Ruby, not even knowing what happened.

"It's my fault," Ruby muttered, "A random thought reminded me of Yang, and…" She paused, gritting her teeth as she remembered the sight of Yang walking towards her, "This happened…" She sighed, "The blood, it isn't there, right?" She held up her hands for both of them to see.

"I don't see any blood," Jaune answered quickly, understanding now that Ruby had gone through some sort of breakdown.

"He's right, there's no blood, and there's _never_ any blood, even if you see some." Weiss replied, "Are you feeling better now?" She gripped Ruby's hands, and looked them over, making sure to hide the bandages from Jaune's sight, "Do you want to skip the rest of classes?"

Ruby felt her lips tremble as she realized the entire class watched her go through that. If she was uncertain of whether they were going to talk behind her back, she knew now that it was an inevitability. She wanted to nod, to tell Weiss that she didn't want to go to class anymore, but she didn't. She shook her head instead, "I'm fine, Weiss." She muttered, taking a deep breath, "I'll be fine now."

Why didn't she go back to her room? Everyone _must_ have seen her freak out like that, she _knew_ they were going to talk about her, so why didn't she back out? She followed Weiss back up to the stands, absently noted that Goodwitch announced her as forfeiting the match, but she hardly cared as she took her seat beside Weiss and next to Nora, who was showering her with concern. Ruby appreciated the concern, but she was hardly even listening to Nora as she tried to puzzle things out.

Okay – first, she _knew_ she had a problem. That was evident. She wasn't blind to it like everyone seemed to think, and she knew that she had to attend classes to keep staying at Beacon. Perhaps, however, that wasn't the main reason. She looked over to Weiss, and felt a light smile appear – Weiss, the one and only friend who stuck with her the entire way through this. If it weren't for her, then none of this would have ever been possible. She stayed with her through _all_ of the difficult times, and was astonishingly patient with her given the circumstances.

Weiss glanced over, and noticed Ruby staring with a smile, so she raised an eyebrow, "What're you looking at?"

"Just thinking," Ruby answered quickly, a light blush appearing on her cheeks at being caught staring.

The white-haired girl looked like she was going to say more, but then she closed her mouth and looked back towards the front of the room as Goodwitch started selecting other students to come forward to duel.

Ruby glanced to the front as well, realizing now why she was going through all of this effort.

Weiss wanted to stay with her, and in turn, Ruby would do anything in her power to make is so that was the case.


	4. Chapter 4

Weiss's eyes narrowed, and she came to a halt, gripping Ruby's arm tightly as she glared at Blake before them. Team JNPR was behind them, and they also stopped, noticing Blake coming forth to confront Ruby. Weiss started to pull Ruby, "Come on, we're going to be late to lunch." Ignoring Blake was her strategy, especially after their last meeting, but Ruby had other ideas apparently.

"Hello, Blake." She greeted pleasantly, giving the girl a small smile, "Did you need something."

Blake opened her mouth about to say something, and then closed it looking away. She took a deep breath, and then faced Ruby yet again, her face completely neutral, but Weiss could already see cracks in it, noticeably in how she was shaking. "Ruby…" Blake muttered, "I – I…" She paused yet again, "I'm…"

"It's ok," Ruby replied, "I forgive you."

Blake looked startled, her yellow eyes widening almost comically large, and her façade broke away entirely as her eyes started glistening with tears, "Y – You… Really?" Her lips started to tremble, and she looked pointedly away, "U – Uh…" She was at a complete loss for words, and Weiss simply observed as Ruby took a few large strides forward and wrapped her arms around the Faunus girl.

"It's ok," Ruby replied, "You're still my friend."

Blake must have had something rehearsed to say, but Ruby simply derailed it entirely with her actions, and now the black-haired girl was at a complete loss of what to do. Tears were pouring out of her eyes now, and Weiss could hear soft sobs from the girl as she just stared down at Ruby awkwardly.

"We'll be at lunch, see you guys there!" Jaune pushed his team forward, winking an eye at Weiss, who just returned it with a nod of her own.

The halls were fortunately pretty empty, since most of the students were already at lunch, so they got some relative privacy. Blake seemed to lose all of her composure now, since almost everyone was gone, and she wrapped her own arms around Ruby, burying her head in the crook of the girl's neck, "I'm so sorry," She cried.

"It's ok," Ruby answered gently, rubbing the girl's back, "I forgive you."

"Why now?" Weiss asked sharply, not believing the sight before her, "A few days ago you were convinced that she was a monster who killed her own sister," She saw both girls wince at that, and she wished she'd chosen her words better, but she pressed on, "Why the sudden change of heart?"

Blake took a step back from Ruby, wiping her eyes on her arms, and she let out a shaky breath, "I won't lie. What I did was completely out of line." She looked to Ruby, "I was just upset about what happened, and I let my anger take over."

"No kidding." Weiss grumbled, her arms still crossed.

Blake's lips trembled at Weiss's cold words, and she averted her gaze to the floor. Weiss was surprised – she thought the Faunus would lash out at her for saying that, but instead she seemed almost as timid and uncertain as Ruby was a few days ago. "I was wrong… I didn't know how to act or behave, I've never lost someone so close to me before, so I had to blame someone for it…"

"Blaming Ruby was hardly the right thing to do!" Weiss exclaimed, taking a step forward, "Why not blame the Grimm?"

"I know it was wrong!" Blake cried, glancing up at Weiss with tears streaming down her eyes, "I know, I've known it ever since it happened, but my head just refused to think differently. Even when I was yelling at you guys before, I knew it was wrong, but…" She shook her head, "I was upset."

"It's fine," Ruby replied, and then she pointedly looked at Weiss, "Right?"

Weiss rolled her eyes, but decided to do what Ruby was, "I'm still pissed at you," She started, seeing Blake look dejected, "But… You're a friend, and I don't have many of those. It would be stupid of me to alienate you."

Blake looked utterly shocked, "You two… You both still want to be friends?"

"Yes!" Ruby exclaimed, "Once a part of team RWBY, you're always a part of team RWBY, even when things get hard!"

"Thank you…" Blake muttered, unable to stop her tears again.

"So… What brought about this change of heart?" Weiss asked, stepping forward and standing next to Ruby now as she looked at Blake, "A few days ago you were very angry with us."

"I thought about what you said," Blake admitted, "About how Yang was Ruby's sister and your friend as well… It made me think about how it was affecting you two as well, but it wasn't until class earlier today that the implications really hit me." She looked at Ruby, "You're taking this just as hard, if not even harder than I am." She whispered, "I saw you crying and asking for forgiveness, and it just clicked – you were suffering just like I was this whole time."

Weiss's gaze softened at that, "We're all taking this hard."

"Yeah," Ruby nodded, "But we're in this together," She smiled at Blake, "Come here!" She wrapped her arms around Blake again, hugging her tightly, "I'm not going to let you go anywhere!"

"I can't believe I tried to leave you guys," Blake muttered, leaning into Ruby's hug and returning it earnestly, "After you learned about my secret, you two still remained my friends… Not many people would do that for me."

"Yeah well, it's good that you're realizing this now." Weiss replied with a smirk – it felt _nice_ to fall back into their usual roles again, "The real question however, is whether you are going to join back up with us or not."

"Of course I am," Blake replied with a smile of her own to match Ruby's, "It's like she said, once a part of team RWBY, always a part of team RWBY."

Ruby's answering squeal of happiness was worth it, despite the fact that Weiss feared that she might go deaf.

XxXxXxX

The rest of the day went impressively well, if Weiss had to say so herself. Ruby seemed to recover significantly since Blake started being with them now, and it almost felt like old times, with the obvious exception of Yang. When would this feeling of loss go away? When would the memories of Yang stop being painful? When would she be able to hang out with her team and not have to be painfully reminded that Yang would never be there with them again?

"Weiss?" Blake waved a hand in the girl's face, and she snapped out of it, "I swear, you space off more than Ruby does now."

"Do not!" Weiss exclaimed, taking stock of her surroundings. They were in their room now, and it was just pass eight. Weiss was already wearing her night gown after a nice long shower, and Blake was now waiting for Ruby to get out of the bathroom so she could take her shower as well. It honestly felt very nice to have Blake back in the room, especially a Blake who wasn't so cold and hateful.

"I'm out!" Ruby called, leaving the bathroom, stretching her hands above her head. She wore her typical tank top and pajama pants, and she made her way over to her teammates, "What are you guys talking about?"

"About how you space out all the time," Weiss replied immediately, trying her best to hide her smile at how indignant Ruby got.

"What?! I never space out!" She cried.

"Ruby…" Blake's voice was soft, and had a weird edge to it, so both Weiss and Ruby looked towards her. They noticed her gaze looking down towards Ruby's wrists, which were wrapped up in bandages. Ruby realized what it was immediately, and tried to hide them behind her back, but the damage was already done. "Is that what I think it is?" She asked.

"No," Ruby shook her head, "It's just a new fashion statement," She replied, "All the girls are doing it nowadays!"

Weiss smacked her forehead, "Ruby, you'd have been more convincing if you literally said _anything_ else. Your sense of fashion is abysmal."

Ruby frowned, and finally revealed her wrists, "It's… It's not as bad as it looks," She tried again.

"When did you do this?" Blake asked, gently holding Ruby's writs looking at the bandages intently, as if she could somehow see through them.

"It was a while ago," Ruby answered vaguely, "It's not that big of a deal."

"IT IS!" Blake shouted, "Ruby… Were you seriously suffering this much?" She asked, "And I was just being angry at you the entire time, I'm so sorry…"

"We already went over this," Ruby yanked her hand out of Blake's, "It's seriously not a problem, I forgive you, you don't need to say sorry anymore!"

"But…" Blake looked distraught, "You didn't have those when I was still in here, so this must have happened after I left the team…"

Weiss had to give Blake points for being so perceptive, even if it meant that she realized exactly what the catalyst was for Ruby cutting herself. "There's no point in hiding it Ruby, she already knows." She saw Ruby give her a betrayed look, but Weiss looked away, "There's no point in avoiding the truth."

"Blake…" Ruby turned back to the Faunus, "This is not your fault."

"It is," Blake denied.

"When I did this, it was because I kept seeing Yang, and I just wanted it to stop… I wasn't in my right mind." Ruby tried fruitlessly to explain.

"But if I hadn't have said all of those awful things to you, it never would have happened." Blake muttered, covering her eyes, "I can't believe I caused you to try something like that…"

"It's not your fault!" Ruby exclaimed, "Please believe me!"

Weiss watched the exchange, and couldn't help but want to laugh. The exchange was almost verbatim what she and Ruby argued about over the last week, except now the roles were reversed – it was Ruby telling Blake to forgive herself, and not Ruby being told to forgive herself. Weiss just watched the fruitless exchange between the two a little longer, but she finally interrupted.

"Both of you stop!" She shouted, "Blake, yes, your actions _may_ have led to this, but even if that's the case, Ruby forgives you! If you really want to make it up to her, then be the best friend and teammate she'd ever had!"

"But…" Blake wanted to continue, but Weiss shook her head.

"No buts!" She turned to Ruby now, "And you, stop skirting around the issue. This _is_ very serious, and not something to be taken lightly. Blake and I would really appreciate it if you didn't treat it like a joke, got it?"

Ruby looked away guiltily, "Yeah… ok."

"Good." Weiss sighed, "Now Blake, don't you have to take a shower?"

"Yeah," Blake muttered, looking back to Ruby, "I'm sorry…"

Ruby didn't speak in words this time, and she reached over and hugged Blake, "I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you!" She exclaimed over and over, "Do what Weiss says, if you want to make this up to me, stay my friend forever, ok?"

That seemed to finally get through to Blake, and she nodded, "Yeah, ok." She smiled lightly, "Thank you, Ruby."

They parted, and Blake went to take a shower, leaving Weiss and Ruby alone, in the room. Once the shower started, Ruby seemed to finally relax, and went to sit beside Weiss on her bed.

"Man, she's stubborn." Ruby sighed.

Weiss glanced over at her, "She's stubborn?" She muttered, causing Ruby to look towards her.

"Yeah, that's what I said!" Ruby replied.

"Ruby – you!" Weiss refrained from pulling out her hair, and let out a soft sigh, "Ruby. Do you not even realize the hypocrisy of what you're saying?" She asked, causing Ruby to tilt her head in confusion, "I've been telling you _everything_ you told Blake for over a week now, and you stubbornly refuse to forgive yourself!"

"But…" Ruby looked to the floor, and started to twiddle her thumbs, "This is different."

"Hardly!" Weiss exclaimed, "You _both_ need to learn to forgive yourselves, and realize that it wasn't your fault! It was _never_ your fault!" She repeated the words over and over, hoping that Ruby would understand. Now that the silver-eyes girl seemed to be lucid, now was perhaps the best time to drive this home. "Forgive yourself!"

Ruby was silent, and looked away, "How?"

"I – I don't know." Weiss replied, "But, you _have_ to do it if you want to move on from this. I know it's hard, but please, for my sake, do it."

Ruby looked up at her in surprise, "For your sake?"

Weiss blushed red, "I mean… I want to stay your partner you know, and while you've recovered a lot today, you still need to be able to fight!"

"Oh, I see." Ruby nodded, "I'll try."

"That's all I ask."

XxXxXxX

Making sure to get out of bed without Weiss waking up was incredibly difficult, but Ruby managed to pull it off after a few minutes. She tip-toed her way pass her sleeping form, and then pass Blake, and she entered the bathroom, shutting the door behind her with a soft click. She went to the sink, and started to wash her hands, since there was so much blood all over them.

_It's not real, Ruby._

She paused in washing her hands, remembering Weiss's words, and she stopped, lifting them out of the water. It certainly _looked_ real though, but why would Weiss lie to her about something like this? No, Weiss wasn't lying. She closed her eyes, and opened them, seeing the blood disappear the moment her eyes opened, "I…" She paused, "It's all not real, but…" She felt tears coming on as she recalled Yang's death again, and she looked down, seeing blood once more.

"It's all my fault," She mumbled.

_It's not your fault._

Again Weiss's words went through her mind, and she paused. Why wasn't it her fault? She was the one who froze and allowed the Grimm to get in a superior position to kill her, after all. If she never came into that position, then the Grimm never would have tried to kill her, and her sister consequently would have never died. However… She wasn't the one who threw her sister in front of the Grimm. That was Yang's actions and her actions alone. She decided to do that on her own, without any sort of prompt from Ruby.

Again, another deep breath, and she closed her eyes. Opening them revealed no blood once more.

_Forgive yourself_.

"How?" She mumbled, "How do I do it?"

"It's easy!"

Ruby spun around so quickly upon hearing the voice that she tripped, collapsing to the floor, but that was hardly an issue. That was _Yang's _voice! It came from right behind her, and she couldn't help but stare wide-eyed at her sister standing before her, giving her the typical wide smile and her arms were cross under her chest, her eyes alight with mirth and joy.

"Yang!" Ruby cried, tears spilling from her eyes, "You – You're alive!" She got up from the floor, and shakily took a step forward, a smile forming across her face as she reached forth and hugged her sister…

… Only to again collapse to the floor, as the image of her sister just disappeared, leaving nothing but thin air. Confusion marred Ruby's face as she looked around the room, glancing all over the bathroom, "Yang?" She called, "Yang, where are you?"

No answer.

Ruby's eyes started to widen in horror, and her lips started to tremble as she began to come to a startling realization – "Please… Let that have been real… Yang…" She called, a sob escaping her lips as she called for her sister, "Yang…"

"Don't leave me…"

"Come back."

"Please…"

She wasn't coming back. Ruby already knew that – she bore witness to her death, saw her bloodied body lying face first in the ground, a hole torn right through her. Of course she wasn't coming back…

Ruby sat against the bathroom wall, bringing her knees forth and she buried her head in her knees as she wrapped her arms around them. She knew Weiss and Blake were asleep, and that she shouldn't disturb them, so she tried her best to keep her sniffling and cries as quiet as possible, but it was so hard to do that when she _just_ saw Yang… Was it just a hallucination? Was that all it really was?

"How can I forgive myself?" She wondered aloud, "Please… Give me an answer Yang."

Yet again, no response. The only thing that she felt was again the urge to die – to end it all. She looked up towards the sink, knowing that there were some razors she could use… It would all be over, and then she wouldn't have to feel this torment – this unforgiving pain and self-hatred. She got up, and took the few steps towards the sink, absently glancing down at her wrists, and she started to undo the bandages.

Death… It was preferable to this.

So what if she had her friends? They didn't understand her pain – they weren't the ones who lost their loved ones. None of them knew the pain of losing family, let alone having it happen to them twice. When her mother died, Yang was there for her, and now that Yang was gone, there was no one there for her.

_What about Weiss?_

There was that stupid voice in her subconscious. She frowned though – what _about_ Weiss? Weiss wanted to stay with her, she wanted to help her, she's the reason Ruby even managed to live this long… None of that was genuine though, was it? Weiss was an heiress to one the largest Dust Company on the planet, and Ruby knew that she could act. It was all just a lie – a worthless fucking lie.

What about Weiss? What _about _her? Who cares!

And her other friends? Nora, Jaune, Pyrrha, and Ren? They were just being with her out of pity, nothing more. They didn't really care about her, not really. They were probably just like everyone else, whispering behind her back, and they probably were among those in the crowd who likely laughed at her when she messed up against Jaune.

Ruby was dimly aware that she was self-justifying things to herself, but that part of her mind was squashed under the onslaught of despair. She finished undoing the bandages, staring at the many cuts on her wrists absently. Earlier they looked ugly to her – a horrible mark that would last her for the rest of her life. Now?

They looked like salvation.

Opening the medicine cabinet above the sink, she pulled out a shaving razor, and she smashed it against the sink, pulling out only the blade. She examined it in her hand, her eyes dulled as she lined it up against her left wrist, aligning it parallel to the others around it, and she sunk the blade into her skin. She shuddered as she felt the pain initially, but she didn't hesitate as she started to drag it across her wrist, watching as blood started to sprout out of the thin cut.

She finished the cut, and examined her wrist, watching it shake as she hardly registered the pain. She was unsatisfied though – while it hurt, she knew it wouldn't be enough to kill her… Wasn't there a main artery she could cut? She could cut that and then just allow the blissful darkness to take her away again like it had last time, only this time, she hoped that she wouldn't wake back up into this nightmare.

Aligning the blade yet again, she was about to press down when there was suddenly a knock on the bathroom door.

"Ruby?" Weiss's voice called, "Are you ok?"

Ruby scowled at the door, "I'm fine." She called weakly, "I'm just going to the bathroom."

There was a pause, and Ruby thought she'd left, but then her voice picked up again, "Then why did you avoid waking me up?" There was a hint of suspicion to her voice, Ruby noted by the intonation.

"I'm _fine._" Ruby replied.

"No…" Ruby saw the doorknob twist, "You're talking like you did before." Now there was a hint of fear, Ruby noted, by how Weiss's pitch went a little higher, "Ruby, if you're –."

She was exposed – Weiss was staring at her holding the razor to her wrist, and no doubt the white-haired girl saw the blood dripping down. Ruby didn't have anything to say, she just stared at Weiss. She looked back down at the razor, now not even caring about the girl's presence. If she could just cut this one last time, _maybe_ it would all end.

The chance never presented itself, as Ruby felt a weight slam into her, and her wrist holding the razor was roughly grabbed. Her back then slammed against the wall, and she was staring into Weiss's piercing blue eyes. "RUBY!" Weiss screamed, "HOW COULD YOU?"

"Let me go!" Ruby cried, "Just let me go!" She struggled to regain control of her hand with the razor, but Weiss's grip was strong – very strong – and she squeezed her wrist, forcing her to drop the razor to the ground. Ruby wanted to fight back with her remaining arm, but Weiss saw it coming, and she gripped her arm, causing Ruby to hiss out in pain as Weiss's hand clasped over her bloodied wrist. "Let go!" Ruby yelled again, "LET ME GO!"

"RUBY!" Weiss shouted yet again, "Get a hold of yourself!"

"No!" Ruby struggled to kick Weiss, but the heiress pressed her body against Ruby's, forcing her legs to lock Ruby's in place. They were a tangled mess, but Weiss effectively had Ruby pinned against the wall, and there was nothing that she could do to break out of it.

"Ruby, please." Weiss's voice softened significantly, "Please… Stop…"

Ruby glared at the girl, but her anger slowly started to dissolve as she noticed tears beginning to roll down Weiss's cheeks. Color seemed to be returning to her world, and the hazy mist of despair seemed to lift along with it. Her anger started to cool, and she stopped struggling, just staring straight at Weiss. "I…" Ruby muttered, "Weiss?"

"Are you feeling better?" Weiss asked, ignoring her tears for now, "If I let you go, you're not going to do anything stupid, are you?"

"I…" Ruby paused, and she grit her teeth, incapable of saying anything else.

What was she doing? Why was she fighting Weiss? Weiss – the only one who stuck with her when things were rough? Why did she believe Weiss was lying to her?

Fresh tears sprung to Ruby's eyes, and she opened her mouth to say something, but she couldn't form words. It just came out as an incoherent mess. Her eyes glanced over to the throbbing pain in her left hand, and she couldn't help but cry more.

Was today all for nothing? All of those happy moments with her friends, getting Blake back – was it all meaningless? She was seriously going to go through with suicide? How could she have been so selfish?

"I – I'm sorry…" Ruby cried out, lowering her head to try and hide her face in shame, "I'm so sorry… I'm sorry…"

"Here, Weiss, we need to clean that wound." Ruby didn't even know Blake was in the bathroom, and judging from the surprised look on Weiss's face, the heiress didn't realize either. Still, Weiss reluctantly let go of Ruby, glancing down at her bloodied hand for a moment, before pulling Ruby forward gently towards the sink.

Silently, Weiss began to clean the wound, and Ruby just cried the entire time, feeling like a child. "I'm sorry…" She couldn't help but repeat over and over, even as Weiss cleaned the wound with water, and Blake started to apply the Hydrogen Peroxide. It may have stung – Ruby didn't know – she was too busy dealing with her grief of what she had nearly done to her friends, and to what she did _again_ to Weiss.

"Ruby," Weiss's stern voice cut clean through her thoughts, and Ruby glanced up, "Why did you do this?"

"I…" Ruby wanted to just start to cry again, but she took as deep a breath as she could, which was quite difficult with her constant tears, "I saw Yang…"

Blake's eyebrow shot up, "Yang?"

"I thought I did," Ruby corrected herself, "She was right behind me, but when I turned around, she was gone… And then all I felt was nothing… I felt hollow inside." She pressed her free hands where her heart was, "It – It was like losing her a second time."

Weiss didn't say a single word, nor did she acknowledge she even heard Ruby, but when she finished wrapping the bandages, she let go of Ruby's hand, and stared at her. If Ruby thought her silence was distressing, _nothing_ compared to seeing her eyes. She could see the immense amount of pain and fear in them, and the tears rippling around the edges of her lashes as she struggled not to cry. "How could you?"

Immense regret filled Ruby, "Weiss… I'm sorry."

Weiss didn't say another word, and she walked out of the bathroom without looking back. Ruby reached out for her, tried to call for her, but nothing came to her mouth. She felt like she let Weiss down – no, she didn't _feel_ like she let her down, she _did_ let her down. Weiss spent so much time helping her, and as repayment, Ruby just went ahead and tried to do that again.

"Ruby," Blake whispered, "I… I think we should get you some help."

"B – But I'll have to leave the academy if I do that," Ruby muttered, "I – I don't want to go, I don't want to leave you guys."

"You're saying that now, but just ten minutes ago you were trying to cut yourself," She pointed to her freshly wrapped bandages, "I don't think things will get better with time."

"No," Ruby shook her head, "I can get better, and I'll do my best! Please… Believe in me."

"Tomorrow morning, we'll go tell Ozpin." Blake replied, ignoring Ruby's plea, "You need help, and I'm not going to let my friend die because I want her to stay in the same grade as me."

"No… Please…" Renewed tears, "Don't do that, please…"

"Come on," Blake reached forward and gently grabbed her arm, "Go to sleep. We'll talk about it again in the morning."

"No!" Ruby yanked her hand away, "I'm not leaving!"

"Ruby…"

"NO!" Ruby shouted, "You're not taking me away!"

Anger, sadness, fear, and despair welled up in Ruby's heart, and she felt her aura around her as she used her semblance to get away. She'd successfully alienated her only two friends, and now they wanted her to go away! She couldn't take it, and she forced herself to run – she didn't care where she went, she just wanted to get away. She slammed the door opened and close so quickly that she doubted Weiss even noticed the blur that ran pass her.

She wasn't going to leave! She – She had to stay! She wanted to be with her friends!

Only one thought rolled through her mind: why did Yang have to die?

XxXxXxX

Weiss jumped to her feet immediately, noticing Ruby rushing pass her. "Ruby!" She screamed, but her voice was lost on the girl as she rushed out of the room so quickly that her eyes could barely keep focus on her. She looked towards the bathroom, and she saw Blake running into their room, looking wide-eyed and afraid. "What happened?!"

"I told her that we should get her help," Blake replied.

Weiss felt anger explode within her, "What?!" She cried, "Why?!"

"Because she _needs _it!" Blake argued back, "Weiss, she just tried to kill herself, and this isn't even the first time! Do you honestly think it's a good idea to keep her here?"

"I…" Weiss paused.

No. It wasn't a good idea at all. Ruby was clearly exhibiting signs of severe depression, and she _did_ need help, but Weiss didn't want her to go away despite knowing all of that. Ruby was her friend, her partner, the person she cared about the most in the entire world, there was no way that she could let her go away!

"Never mind that for now," Blake cut in, "We _have_ to find her. Do you know where she could have gone?"

"I don't know," Weiss answered, racking her brain for any possible spots, "This place is huge!"

"Damn," Blake muttered, "Alright, I'll get Jaune's team to help us out, you go look for her."

Weiss gave the girl a curt nod, and she rushed out of the room, looking down the dimly lit hallway. Whenever Ruby used her semblance, there were usually rose petals around – whether it was an added flair, or an actual effect of her semblance, Weiss really never knew the answer to. That was until now – it appeared to simply be a flair she added. There were no signs of rose petals in either direction, so she pulled her hair in frustration, and then she just picked a random way to run.

Internally she was cursing Ruby the entire time, berating her for being so stubborn and idiotic, but another part of her was also incredibly worried, fearing that while alone, Ruby may consider giving in and going through with suicide. Her heart beat faster at the terrifying thoughts, and she tried her best to suppress her tears, but she knew they were coming.

What if she found Ruby in a puddle of blood, her wrists all jagged and shredded by razors she managed to find? What if Ruby decided to just run away, and no one could ever find her? The scenarios just grew worse and worse by the second in her mind, and soon her brisk run turned into a frantic stride. She was easily running faster than she could ever recall running in her life, and her breath was coming out ragged, her face turning redder as she exerted more force than she thought she was capable of.

Her mind started to grow dizzy however, as she was unable to keep up with the pace, and soon she had to stop and catch a breath. She came to a stop in the hallway leading to the many classrooms, and she leaned against the wall. She wished dearly for a water bottle, and she also realized that she was going to have to wash the night gown she was wearing thoroughly to get the stench of sweat off of it. She shook her head of such frivolous thoughts, and she continued running.

The night turned into a blur for her, at least an hour passed as she searched, and she ran into Blake and the members of team JNPR along the way as well, giving each other updates and status reports on where they've been. It was amazing that they couldn't find a trace of her anywhere, and it worsen Weiss's panic each time she learned that Ruby wasn't in another location each time, and her heart grew heavier and heavier as the fear grew worse and worse.

"Where are you?" Weiss asked herself during a brief break. Her legs were throbbing in pain from the exertion, but she forced them to keep moving despite it.

It was early in the morning, a little pass three, when Weiss's scroll started to vibrate. She snatched it out of her pocket, and brought it up, and her heart leap as she read a single message from Pyrrha: _I found her_. Her fingers acted before she even thought to ask where Ruby was, and then she got another reply with the location, her eyes widening as she read Beacon Cliffs.

_I'll deal with this_. She typed out, _Please, I'll give you guys an update after I talk with her._

She waited with baited breath for a few minutes, and smiled when she saw all of them give confirmations. _I'll be close by, so just say something if you need help_. Was Blake's reply, and Weiss was sure the others wouldn't be going to their room until they knew the situation was under control.

Getting off of her sore legs, Weiss pushed forward, and ran towards where she knew Ruby was.

The Beacon Cliffs was a beautiful spot, Weiss had to concede, as she finally made it there. It didn't quite match up with her home at Atlas, but most things didn't. She could see a massive view of the Emerald Forest, and the Cliffside itself had no benches or manmade structures, except for the launch pads she knew were somewhere further off. Instead, it was as if nature itself claimed this land, and she found Ruby sitting dangerously close to the edge, staring up into the star filled sky.

She walked slowly at first, afraid that if Ruby saw her, she would run, but then she gained more confidence the closer she got, until she was almost directly behind the girl.

"Ruby." She spoke up, causing Ruby to jump in surprise, "It's nice to finally find you."

Ruby spun around, and looked up at Weiss, "Oh… Hi."

"Hello," Weiss greeted back, and she just took a seat right next to the girl, where she could look over the Emerald Forest from Ruby's side. "Nice view."

"Yeah," Ruby muttered, "But I like the stars better."

Weiss looked up, and she had to admit that the stars did look incredible that night. There were hundreds of them in the sky, some brighter than others, but all of them were equally as beautiful as the rest. She just stared up, getting lost in the sight, but then she heard sniffling from Ruby, and turned to look at her. "What's wrong?"

"I'm… I'm not a very good person, am I?" Ruby asked.

Weiss wasn't sure why Ruby would ask such a ridiculous question, but she humored the girl anyway, "I think you're a wonderful person, Ruby."

For some reason, that seemed to be the wrong answer, and Ruby lowered her head, covering it with her hands as she started to cry, "You're too nice to me…"

Weiss looked away from Ruby, and instead admired the stars yet again, "You're my partner, Ruby."

"But… Why does that mean I deserve your kindness?" Ruby asked, looking towards Weiss with a nigh desperate look in her eye, "After everything I did to you now – after I just went against your wishes, and tried to k – kill myself…"

"That…" Weiss paused, "That did upset me, Ruby. I'm not going to lie about that."

"And now you probably hate me," Ruby muttered, now looking away from Weiss, out towards the Emerald Forest, "I'm just an idiot who keeps screwing up. I can never do anything right."

"You're just sick…" Weiss muttered, the words feeling like ash on her tongue, "You… You might need help."

Ruby didn't say a single word, but she just kept on staring at the forest. Finally, she let out a sigh and started to speak, "You know, when I lost my mother, this happened to me before…"

Weiss glanced towards Ruby, but the younger girl didn't look back. This was one of the few times Ruby had mentioned her mom, so she just nodded and asked, "What happened to her?"

"One day, she left to go do a mission with her team." Ruby replied, "I don't know the details – I doubt I'll ever learn all of the details – but something went very wrong. Their team got separated. My mom was by herself, and was ambushed by the Grimm in the forest."

"Oh…" Weiss muttered.

"I always hear about how she fought bravely, that she died like a Huntress is supposed to. I heard that she gave her life so her team could live, but like I said, I don't know the details of the mission itself. The only part I remember perfectly is staying awake at home, wondering when mom will come home."

"Ruby…"

"I stayed up so late that I fell asleep the next morning and had to skip school," She chuckled lightly, "And then when I woke up, I waited even more. 'She's supposed to be home by now', that's what I remember thinking to myself. The thought that she was dead never crossed my mind, because I always heard stories of how amazing she was."

"And then you got the news?" Weiss asked, already knowing the answer.

"It wasn't until a week later when uncle Qrow walked in through the front door… He and my dad went into the kitchen to talk. I don't remember hearing very much, since I was told to go play while they talked, but I knew that if uncle Qrow was home, then mom must be too! So I went around trying to find her." Ruby took a small breath, "I remember my dad taking me aside, and I remember him crying a _lot_ when he told me that mom was not going to be coming home. I thought he was kidding at first – mom was invincible! She couldn't die to the Grimm!" She shook her head, "It wasn't until uncle Qrow told me that I realized they weren't kidding."

"That... Must have been hard." Weiss conceded.

"It was." Ruby replied curtly, pulling up some grass as she recalled her memories, trying to keep her tears at bay, "I was only seven at the time, but I still remember being sad, and I remember being lost and not knowing what to do. I thought my mom would always be there for me, but then she wasn't. If it wasn't for Yang, I don't know what I would have done."

"Yang's like that," Weiss replied with a soft smile.

"Yeah… She is." She replied, "She would hold me for hours while I just cried, and she never left my side for even a minute." Ruby stopped, reaching up and wiping her eyes, "My mom was the most important person in the world to me, and then she vanished. Dad got distant after that – he was never mean or abusive, but he sort of just… Stopped." She shrugged helplessly, "So that left Yang to care for me. She was awkward at first, and she'd beat up people who made me cry, but she sort of became like a second mother to me. And now… Now she's gone too…"

Weiss could see Ruby's shoulders shake, so she reached over and took hold, "It'll be alright."

"I wish I could believe you," Ruby muttered through her tears, "But we both know that's not true."

"Ruby…" Weiss didn't hesitate as she got onto her knees, and leaned over to hug Ruby. The silver-eyed girl's head whipped over, and she blinked her eyes a few time. "It's ok, Ruby, we'll get through this together…"

"But I think Blake was right…" Ruby whispered, "I need help, I – I can't trust myself."

"I don't want you to go…" Weiss stubbornly gripped Ruby tighter, "I'll be there for you, so please don't go!"

It was selfish of her – she knew that Ruby should seek professional help, but Weiss didn't want to be alone. Ruby was the most important person in her life, and she'd be damned if she let her go… But why? What was it about Ruby that made her feel this way? How did she come to accept her as someone this important to her? Sure, she was the first person to actually treat her as a normal human being, but even then, wasn't this going too far for someone who she only considered a friend?

"You…" Whatever she was about to say, Ruby reconsidered it, and instead she leaned into Weiss's side, "If y – you stay with me, then I'll try to do the same for you." She gripped Weiss's gown, "Please help me…"

"Whatever you need, I'll help you with it." Weiss promised. She was shaking – but she really couldn't help it. The adrenaline that was still coursing through her veins, and the fear that she may lose Ruby was nearly overwhelming, so much so that she could barely think straight. She knew Blake was nearby, and she was positive that the girl was probably listening, perhaps unapprovingly since Weiss refused to let Ruby go, but honestly, Weiss didn't care right now.

The two of them just sat there, along the edge of the Cliffside holding each other, ignoring the sights around them as they just focused on each other. Time passed, but they didn't knew how much passed, and nor did they care. It wasn't until there was a slight vibration from Weiss's pocket that she opened her eyes and pulled out her scroll.

"Blake says we should go back to our room." Weiss muttered, her eyes wandering down to the time, "It's already four."

Ruby let go of Weiss, and separated from her, a small smile on her face, "Then I guess we should go to bed, huh? We don't want to miss any class."

"You're worried about classes?" Weiss asked. Classes were the farthest thing from her mind right now, especially after Ruby's suicide attempt. She shook her head, and reached up to flick Ruby on the forehead, "You… You're something else sometimes."

Just like that, things returned to normal, Ruby rubbed her forehead and pouted cutely, but Weiss just ignored it, and held out her hand. Ruby accepted it, and they both began to walk back towards Beacon. Unfortunately, this time Weiss walked back with the knowledge that even though Ruby looked fine, even though she seemed to be recovering again, that it could all come crumbling down just as fast.

She'd grown sloppy, she'd stopped bothering to watch Ruby as closely, and it was only luck that she even woke up – she blushed as to _why _she woke up – since it was purely due to the lack of warmth next to her which she'd started growing quite used to these past few days. Would she wake up in time to stop it if it happened a third time though?

She didn't know, and she was absolutely terrified.

XxXxXxX

Notes: So... Here we are again.

Got a good review telling me that the ending didn't fit with the theme of the rest of the story, and you know what? He was right.

So I'm rewriting the ending to make it fit. Things aren't just going to magically get better, and while I enjoyed writing Yang's character, I felt that the entire scene with her wasn't very _good_, since - as he put it - it just amounts to a Dues Ex Machina. I want Ruby to get through this on her own with the help of Weiss, and consequently, this means that the story's going to be longer than I intended. It hopefully should only be another 6-7k chapter longer at this rate, but I'm not going to put a cap on it.

Anyway, thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

Blake wasn't sure what to do with Weiss and Ruby when they finally returned to their dorm room, but she did explain to them that team JNPR was informed of what happened, and they were safe in their own room. There were very few words spared between the three of them, but she watched Weiss like a hawk the whole time. It wasn't like Weiss was ever going to notice, since the heiress was too busy doing the same to Ruby. However, there were other things Blake noticed – the way in which Weiss would occasionally looked scared and panicked, and then she reached for Ruby, gripping her arm tightly.

Things got incredibly awkward as well, when Weiss refused to change in front of Blake, but she _also_ didn't want Ruby to leave. So Blake had to go into the bathroom while Weiss changed with a blushing Ruby nearby. While in the bathroom, she at least was able to clean up the blood, and she picked up the razor, frowning at the sight of it. So she did the only thing she could of to do, she got the rest of the razors out of the cabinet, and first thing tomorrow, she was going to dispose of them somewhere Ruby wasn't able to get them. If she or Weiss had to shave, they could go over to team JNPR's room.

When Weiss was done, Ruby knocked on the door, "Weiss is – is done changing."

Blake didn't even need to see Ruby's face to know that she was still blushing, "Good." Blake sighed, walking out with the razors hidden out of sight so Ruby didn't see them, "Now…" She wanted to bring up the topic of professional help, but she knew that Weiss would probably blow a gasket if it was brought up, and honestly she was dead tired. "We should go to bed," She finally settled on, "Tomorrow morning we'll skip the first class or two and talk." She eyed Weiss meaningfully, and the heiress matched her stare just as intensely.

Getting to sleep was rather easy for Blake, since she got quite a lot of exercise by running all over the place, and despite the fact that she felt dirty, especially since she didn't take a shower, she still fell asleep fast. She didn't even need to bother to look over at Ruby and Weiss to know that they were attached to each other like magnets, not letting go over anything. It was cute, especially to see Weiss so vulnerable, but it was also a hindrance, since it meant that she was unlikely to want Ruby to leave.

So that brought her to the next morning, where she sat on her bed directly across from Ruby and Weiss. Ruby at _least _acted as she should, looking shamefully down to the floor unable to meet her eye, but Weiss was just staring at her defiantly, and having the audacity to act like it was _her_ who had the wrong idea! Blake let out a small sigh, and then opened her eyes, She spoke, starting their little impromptu meeting: "Ruby needs help, do you deny that Weiss?"

"No, of course not," Weiss replied, crossing her arms, "But _we're_ the ones who will help her!" She glanced over at Ruby, Blake noticing the slight panic in her gaze again, and the heiress grabbed Ruby's hand, "She'll be fine with us!"

"Just like last night?" Blake asked.

Ruby sunk in on herself even more, but Weiss just growled, and quickly bit back with, "That was a lapse in judgement from both of us! It won't happen again!"

"Weiss…" Blake muttered, "Why are you so intent on having her stay?"

It was the one question burning in her mind, and she again noticed Weiss looking over to Ruby – her eyes needing to confirm that she was there. It was almost as if Weiss was afraid Ruby was going to disappear. Blake wanted to claim that this was having just as bad a psychological effect on her than it was on Ruby, but she knew that Weiss would get pissed if she even implied that she was starting to develop issues. So she just waited for Weiss to say anything, and finally, a small voice spoke up.

"I think I need help," Ruby admitted, "Maybe we should talk to Ozpin…"

Blake commended Ruby on her bravery – very few people would speak up when they knew they had a problem, but she did anyway. She still looked dejected, and she could see Ruby avoiding looking at Weiss, but she finally looked up at Blake, and the Faunus gave her an appreciative nod, "I'm glad you think so, Ruby."

"NO!" Weiss cried, "You said you wouldn't go!"

"I – I know I did," Ruby muttered, "But…When I did _that_ last night, I…" She paused, trying to find the right words, "it was like… Everything I thought was different. I was still _me_, but my view of things shifted… I started to hate everyone and _want_ to die." She shook her head, "I don't want to go through that again!"

"You _won't_!" Weiss exclaimed, "I'll _never_ leave your side!"

Desperation, Blake decided, didn't fit Weiss at all. She felt like Ruby that moment, but unlike Ruby, who started to tear up, she managed to keep it inside. Instead, she turned to Weiss, "Weiss. Give me a reason – any objective reason – as to why we should allow Ruby to stay, especially after she admitted to having a problem."

"I…" Weiss was at a loss, Blake could see.

"Maybe this is for the best," Ruby muttered, "I don't want to go either, I want to be with you guys, but I don't know if I can do it."

"We talked about this last night…" Weiss whispered now, looking over towards Ruby, "You said you'd stay with me, you said that we wouldn't be separated."

"I know I did," Ruby acknowledged, nodding her head "But…" She wiped her tears away, "I – I don't want to hurt you guys again."

"You won't," Weiss replied, ignoring Blake, "I'll never leave your side if that's what it takes, just don't go."

Blake's eyes widened – that look Weiss was giving Ruby. The mixture of worry, and anger, with a hint of something else… The way that Weiss kept gripping Ruby tightly, making sure she wouldn't go, the way she wanted Ruby to stay with her… No. She must be reading things wrong, she shook her head, and got back on track, "Ruby?" She wanted the girl's opinion. If she shut Weiss down here, then there'd be no more obstacles in Ruby's way.

Ruby was silent, staring at Weiss, until she reached over and hugged her, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to lie to you."

"Then you're going?" Weiss asked, her was quiet and bitter.

Another long silence.

Blake watched Ruby think it over – she couldn't know what was going through the younger girl's mind, but she could tell that Ruby was thinking hard. Finally, another long moment passed when Ruby shook her head, "N – No… I want to stay." She gave in, much to Blake's disappointment, "I'm going to stay with you guys."

Weiss hugged Ruby, holding the younger girl tightly to herself as tears began to leak out of the corners of her eyes, and Ruby returned it just as intently.

There was no denying it now. The way they looked at each other, the way they were holding to one another, the way that Weiss was changing. This wasn't a simple friendship between the two of them. It went far deeper than that, and frustratingly, neither of them seemed to even realize it. Blake wondered if she should clue them in, but she decided against it.

"Ruby," Blake's voice brought both of them back, and a slight smile formed on her face when Weiss realized what she'd done and she quickly distanced herself from Ruby, "Are you sure? I'm your friend, and I think getting you help is the right thing to do." Both girls started to tense up, but Blake lifted her hand, "But… Against my better judgement, if you want to stay, then I'll do everything I can to help as well."

"Thank you," Ruby replied genuinely, giving Blake a wide smile, "I'm still scared of what might happen, but I think we can do it."

"Yeah," Weiss nodded, "And the first step is to _never_ let you leave our sights." Weiss flicked the girl on the forehead, "You got that?"

Ruby rubbed her forehead, and nodded in confirmation, "Yeah."

Weiss appeared to be going back to normal now, but Blake could see cracks in the girl's façade. She could still see the girl eyeing Ruby the entire time, and she noticed how close she sat to Ruby. On the other hand, she could also see how Ruby didn't seem to care about any of these advances, and in fact, seemed to appreciate it. How Blake missed this after so long, she had no idea, but she got up, "I'm going to take a shower."

"Alright." Ruby called, "I'm going in after you!"

"Not alone you're not!" Weiss exclaimed.

Blake allowed herself to laugh at the following exchange, and just shook her head. Would they ever come to the realization themselves?

Honestly… Love was such a needlessly complicated emotion to deal with.

XxXxXxX

There was only two days left until Yang's funeral, and Weiss had only that long to make Ruby better. It seemed like an impossible task, and she felt an odd sense of fear and apprehension as the hours ticked on, bringing them closer and closer to the day when Ruby's evaluation would be complete. She knew that Ruby's breakdown in Ms. Goodwitch's class was going to leave a bad mark, but they had one more class with the woman tomorrow, so hopefully Ruby could put on a good showing then, then maybe she would be able to stay. There was the issue of the many cuts on her wrists, and she knew that they would eventually be discovered – she didn't know when – but it was something she was afraid of.

If the staff found out, would they pull Ruby from school based on that alone? She didn't know, but it was a fear that refused to leave her mind. Before they went to their afternoon classes that day, she made sure to get Ruby to hide them from view – not that the younger girl needed much coaching on this, since she too didn't want them discovered. Ruby went along with every suggestion amicably, and seemed just as eager as Weiss to stay.

But… What was this feeling? It was unknown to her. Every time she found herself looking at Ruby, and initially she chalked it up to fear that she would disappear again, but even during classes, when Ruby was talking to Nora and Ren, when there was little chance of her escaping, she still found herself staring. Every time she took Ruby's hand now to lead her to class, there was an awkward air around the as her heart fluttered, and quite frankly, _it was annoying._

This was Ruby of all people! Why was she behaving like this around her? It reminded her of those awful movies Ruby would always watch, where the stereotypical teenage girl would fall in love with the boy and…

…

… Fall in love?

Weiss dropped her pencil onto the desk, and didn't even care to grab it as it rolled off the far edge of the table, dropping down to the floor where she couldn't reach it and resume taking notes. Her head slowly turned to Ruby, and it was just then that Ruby decided to look over as well and give her a smile. Her heart thumped against her chest _hard_, and the word flashed through her mind again – love.

"You ok?" Ruby asked, probably noticing the expression her face, "You look kinda pale."

Weiss would have shushed her for talking during class, but her mind was hardly functioning, and instead she just numbly looked away. She wanted to run away and confront these feelings. She wanted to do anything with Ruby not around, but she effective trapped _herself_ with her statement that morning, when she said that she would never leave Ruby's side.

"Weiss?"

"Fine." Weiss muttered, "I'm fine."

Ruby looked concerned, and Weiss sharply turned her head, feeling her cheeks starting to heat up. A part of her felt annoyed – why was Ruby the one being concerned? If anything, it should be the other way around! She had to be the one to worry about Ruby, since she was the one who was going through so much trouble. So she pushed her feelings down, and she looked back to Ruby with a small smile, "Really… I'm fine."

It was a lie, and she cursed as she noticed Ruby giving her an odd look – she didn't seem to buy it. To try and act more normal, Weiss grabbed another pencil from Nora (who wasn't bothering to pay attention anymore), and she started to take her notes again, trying to keep the multiple thoughts out of her mind. She crushed all urges to look over at Ruby, and kept on working.

There was no way she loved Ruby! That was preposterous!

Besides, didn't she have other things to worry about other than this?

"Hey, Weiss? Remnant to Weiss!" She snapped out of her thoughts, and looked up, noticing Jaune looking at her strangely, "You alright there?"

Weiss glanced over at Ruby, who was again flashing her a concerned look, and then to her other side, where Blake sat, looking similarly concerned. She couldn't help but blush, and she coughed into her hand, "I apologize. I didn't mean to zone out like that." She turned to Jaune, "I'm fine, there's just a lot on my mind."

She avoided looking towards Ruby again, lest she feel her heart uncomfortably throb again, and she started packing up, "We're going to be late to our next class if we wait around any longer, come on."

She stood, waiting patiently for the others to do the same, and soon they were off.

XxXxXxX

Ruby frowned as she continued to watch Weiss – ever since last night, she'd been acting really odd. Well, it wasn't really Ruby's place to mention people behaving oddly, she supposed, given her own behavior, but Weiss had changed… She was becoming very needy, always having to make sure she was within an arm's length of her. She seemed to be afraid, and Ruby couldn't help but feel immensely guilty for putting her through that, but now…

Now it was the exact opposite. Weiss was actively avoiding her. She knew that much, but she couldn't figure out why. Earlier than morning, Weiss was the one who convinced Ruby to try and stay, but now it seemed that Weiss could hardly stand to be around her! A sour expression crossed Ruby's face, and she glanced away from Weiss's back.

"You ok Ruby?" Nora asked curiously, "You look like you've eaten spoiled meat!"

Ruby's expression eased, and she smiled towards Nora, "I'm ok," She replied with a light smile, "I'm just thinking about, uh, things." She answered lamely, hoping Nora wouldn't push the issue.

"Ohhh! I love thinking about things!" The hyperactive girl gushed, "It's always so much fun to do that!"

"Uh… Yeah." Ruby replied, and she looked pass Nora's shoulder to Ren, who just gave an apologetic shrug. Ruby's eyes returned to the girl in front of her, though she was at a loss of what to say, since her mind was still preoccupied.

"Hey," Blake spoke up, walking up to Weiss, "Can I talk to you? Alone?" She glanced back towards Ruby quickly. Ruby caught the look, but was just confused as to what it meant. Annoyance welled up inside of her, but she quickly shot it down, since along with it a small voice in her head was telling her to be suspicious of them – that they were hiding something from her.

"Why?" Weiss asked.

"It'll just be for a minute," Blake replied casually, "But it's important." She spoke those words meaningfully, Ruby noticing Blake grip Weiss's arm, "Come on."

"We can't," Weiss yanked her arm away, and glanced back at Ruby with fear in her eyes, "What about-?"

"Jaune," Blake spoke up, "Can you watch Ruby for us for a little bit? We'll only be gone for a little bit okay?" She gave him a bright smile, and then, with Weiss in tow, she walked away from them, going around the corner.

"Um… Ok?" Jaune replied. He glanced back to Pyrrha, "What's going on?"

"I don't know," Pyrrha replied, walking up towards Ruby, "Let's just head to class, shall we?" She asked, patting Ruby on the shoulder.

Ruby was still watching the corner, her eyes narrowing a little, but once Pyrrha's hand touched her shoulder, she felt the darkness fading from her mind, and felt a momentary shame. "Yeah, ok…" She replied, accepting Pyrrha's offer.

She hoped that her team would be back soon… She didn't want to be alone for very long.

XxXxXxX

"What's your problem?" Blake asked, glaring at Weiss.

She'd dragged Weiss as far as she could go, getting the girl into an empty classroom. She made sure to shut the door, and then she practically threw Weiss away from her, unable to hide her disgust. This was the girl who said that she didn't want Ruby to go – the one who prevented Ruby from getting professional help, and now she was doing this? This would do far more damage in the long run, and she wouldn't allow it to continue any further.

"I don't have a problem Blake!" Weiss exclaimed, glancing nervously towards the door, "We should get back!"

"Jaune's watching her," Blake made sure to get in front of the doorway, preventing Weiss from leaving, "Now explain."

"There's nothing to explain!" Weiss yelled, "Now move!"

"That's a load of crap and you know it!" Blake countered, "This morning you were practically begging her to stay with you, and now you're avoiding her. If you seriously think Ruby and I haven't noticed, then you're dafter than I thought."

Weiss's face turned a shade of red, and Blake could swear she heard the girl growling in anger, but then it just stopped. Her shoulder slumped down, and she looked to the floor, "You've noticed?"

"Yes."

"And so has Ruby?" Weiss questioned.

"I'd be amazed if she didn't notice. Issues notwithstanding, Ruby's an excellent Huntress, and is bound to notice such things." Blake explained, "Now you're going to explain to me just why you're avoiding her, and I'll be the one to decide whether I should hurt you or not."

"Yang's been rubbing off on you," Weiss commented without thinking, and then she blinked in surprise, her face turning pale, "I mean…"

Blake was taken aback by the off-hand mention of her old teammate, but felt a sort of pride at being compared to Yang, and she couldn't help a small smile from forming, despite the fact that the mention of Yang's name also brought back all of the memories of her death. "It's ok."

Weiss let out a huff, "But I swear, nothing wrong…"

"How long are you going to keep this up for?" Blake asked, crossing her arms and leaning against the door, "We'll be late for class at this rate."

"You – I…" Weiss sighed, "Is there nothing I can say to make you move?"

"Nope." Blake replied, "Now out with it."

Weiss miserably ran her hand through her hair, turning her back to Blake. What she was thinking, Blake didn't know, but it must have been pretty distressing. The white-haired girl turned to her, opened her mouth like she was going to say something, and then her mouth shut. This went on for nearly a minute, and Blake was growing impatient, tapping her foot on the ground.

"Ok," Blake sighed, "Let me guess: This has something to do with Ruby?"

"Maybe." Weiss replied defensively, "So what if it does?"

"Perhaps about certain feelings?"

"I…" Weiss paused again, and Blake saw her eyes widen only a fraction, before the heiress regained her neutral look, "No."

"Don't lie to me," Blake replied, stopping her incessant tapping, "Look, I already figured this out, so if you could just move on with it, that would be wonderful."

"It's so easy for you to say!" Weiss cried, "Oh, she loves Ruby~! Isn't that cute?!" She growled and turned to Blake, "That's what you're thinking, isn't it!" She stomped around the room, "But it's not true!"

"I never mentioned love, you know." Blake replied evenly, not raising her voice to Weiss.

"You… Didn't?" Weiss muttered, her form visibly deflating, "Well, I…"

"Given how you behave around her, it was sort of a given." Blake replied, "I'm surprised you only just _now_ realized it."

"But it can't be…" Weiss muttered, "That can't be right…"

"What is it then?" Blake asked.

"Anything else!" Weiss paced back and forth, "It can't be this! Why would I only just _now _realize all of this?!"

"The thought of Ruby going away seem to be a big clue," Blake replied, "Even I was surprised by how much you wanted her to stay. You were practically crying this morning when she said that she needed help, if you recall."

"That's just because I was surprised," Weiss defended herself, "She told me last night that she would stay, and then she went and betrayed me like that…"

Blake's eyes narrowed, "Don't you _dare_ make this about you." She took a step forward, "Ruby's the one who needs help! You're practically betraying _her_ by not allowing her to go!"

"But…" Weiss paused, and then guiltily looked away, "I'm not trying to make this about myself, but…" She shuddered, "I don't want to lose her or anyone else…"

"You're not going to lose her," Blake commented, "If she goes away, you'll still be able to see her."

"But it won't be the same," Weiss shook her head, "I don't want her to go."

"At the rate you're going right now, she's probably going to think the exact opposite." Blake replied, "You're avoiding her, and I can already tell it's hurting her feelings – she doesn't understand what's wrong."

"I didn't mean to do that," Weiss muttered, "But…"

"But you were afraid of what loving her meant?" Blake asked.

"I – I don't love her!" Weiss denied yet again, "It's just…"

"Just what?"

"I don't know!" Weiss shook her head, "But it's not love!"

Another sigh, "Weiss… Fine, maybe it's not love, but even if it is, who cares? You avoiding Ruby like this is doing more harm than good." She explained, "You can't be doing this, not when she's so…" She thought about which word to use, and finally settled on, "Fragile."

"I know!" Weiss exclaimed, "It's not like I'm trying to be a bitch to her, but I'm just surprised is all!"

"Surprised by what?"

"NOTHING!" Weiss screamed, letting out a loud huff, her hands were both curled up into fists, "Stop antagonizing me like this!"

"Damn it Weiss!" Blake exclaimed, finally losing her cool, "I'm not trying to be an ass, but you need to get over this! If you seriously want Ruby to stay, then _you_ have to be the one to help her. I don't know if you've realized this, but she's relying on _you_ to help her – not me or anyone else!"

"She accepts help from you guys though…" Weiss weakly defended.

"Yeah? What about before all of that, when it was just you with her? It was you – you're the one she's relying on for support. If you're still avoiding her tonight, what do you think will happen?"

"It… It wouldn't happen again…" Weiss denied, shaking her head.

"It _will_ happen again!" Blake exclaimed, "We didn't think she'd do it again last night, but she did despite everything that happened! Do you seriously, _honestly_ think it wouldn't happen a third time? Are you willing to risk that?"

"Are you telling me to let her go?" Weiss asked, glaring over at Blake now, "I already told you my answer this morning!"

"No, that's not what I'm saying, even though I think it's a good idea." She sighed, rubbing her closed eyes in frustration, "Look, I'm just saying that if you're still avoiding her, those voices she hear or whatever will probably be stronger, and it will lead to…" She paused, "_That_ again."

Weiss wanted to yell, but her shoulders just slumped down, "You're right."

A relieved sigh, "Thank you."

"What… What should I do?"

"Talk to Ruby. I think this is something you two need to talk alone about. I'll go spar with Pyrrha and Jaune later tonight or something, and then you two just talk… You both need to come to terms with what you want to do… Ruby needs help, Weiss, there's no way you can deny that, and you also need to talk about _why_ you were avoiding her."

"But… I don't know what to say."

"That's not my problem, is it?" Blake replied, a slight smirk on her face at the dejected look on Weiss's face, "But seriously, just… Talk."

"I – I'll try." Weiss muttered, looking down.

"That's all I ask." Blake replied, finally stepping aside, "Now go and apologize to Ruby."

"Yeah," Weiss allowed a sad smile onto her face, "I guess I'll do that."

XxXxXxX

Ruby sat on Weiss's bed later that night already in her pajamas, and Weiss was pacing around in front of her saying nothing so far. Blake ran off, saying that she wanted to go sparing, so now they were alone… And it was very awkward. Ruby tried to be polite about it, but now even she was beginning to fidget from the anxiety and worry about what Weiss would say.

Sure, earlier that day, when Blake and Weiss came back, the heiress did apologize to her, but she could still feel a sort of apprehension from her. When Ruby whispered to Blake about what they talked about, the Faunus said nothing, only telling her that she'd learn later that night. Sure enough, Weiss asked to talk to her in their room later that night, saying that it was _very_ important.

So now here she was, waiting patiently as Weiss just walked around, not saying a single word.

"Um… Weiss?" She finally broke, unable to stay silent any longer.

Weiss's shoulder shook, and she turned to look at Ruby. It was so odd to see Weiss like this, so nervous and uncertain, but Ruby had to admit that it was unnerving. "Oh… Right." Weiss muttered, "Sorry, I…" She let it hang, and looked away from Ruby.

"… Yeah?" Ruby beckoned.

"Look… Blake and I talked earlier today." She started, crossing her arms and huffing, "It wasn't anything important."

Well, at least Weiss was acting a bit more like herself, but it was obvious that she was hiding the issue, whatever it was. Ruby just stared right back at Weiss, clearly unimpressed with her and her actions, "Come on Weiss, you didn't say you wanted to talk to me just to say that, did you?"

"Ugh…" Weiss faltered, and pointedly looked away towards the window, "It's… Difficult for me to talk about this…"

Ruby frowned, "Is it about what happened yesterday night?"

"It's somewhat related." Weiss admitted, "Kinda…"

"Do you want me to go then?" Ruby asked, "Should I go tell Ozpin?"

Weiss shook her head quickly, "No!"

"Then what's wrong?" Ruby asked, "It can't be harder to tell me this, especially considering everything that's happened the last few weeks…" It was a weak attempt at humor, but Weiss did feel her mouth twitch upward just a bit.

"No, I suppose when you put it like that, it's not quite as bad." She relaxed slightly, her shoulders dropping an inch or two. "But… I don't really know where to start."

"How about telling me what Blake talked with you about?" Ruby replied.

Weiss seemed about to say something, but like every other time, she closed her mouth and looked away. Honestly, Ruby was getting fed up with it, and she was about to speak up herself when Weiss finally spoke. "Ruby… You're… You're feeling ok now, right?"

Ruby blinked in confusion briefly at the weird question, but she nodded, "Yeah, I'm fine."

"And later tonight will you be?"

"I… I don't know." Ruby admitted, "I thought I was fine yesterday, and I _feel_ fine right now, but…" She let out a soft sigh, "I don't know when it'll happen again."

"Or if it'll happen again," Weiss added.

Ruby gave her a wry smile, though it didn't quite reach her eyes, "That's probably being a little too optimistic."

"What?"

"I'm sorry," Ruby suddenly coughed into her hand, "I didn't mean to be so down."

"No – why did you say that?" Weiss asked, "What are the chances of it happening again?"

"I don't know." Ruby replied, "But… I already told you, I like… I have this voice in the back of my head and it just keeps whispering things to me, telling me to do stuff like… What I did last night in there.." She pointed towards the bathroom, looking distinctly uncomfortable right now.

"And is it there even now?"

"Yeah, " Ruby nodded, "I can still hear it… It's telling me to give up, to go through with it all…" She shuddered, "It's not affecting me right now though."

"Earlier today, when I was avoiding you, did it speak up?"

"So you _were_ avoiding me," Ruby grinned, as if she caught Weiss in the middle of doing something she wasn't supposed to do, "I thought so!"

"Ruby! Just answer the question, please!" Weiss practically begged, causing Ruby to look at her in surprise. "Please." Weiss added after a few moments.

Ruby wrapped her arms around herself, and leaned forward slightly, the happiness fading from her thoughts as she thought back to earlier that day. "A little, yeah." She replied, "It's like… A dark voice, saying that you didn't care about me, and that you were going to abandon me, and that I should give up." Ruby frowned, "No, calling it a voice is wrong… It's like… It's like my own thoughts, but it only happens when I feel really sad or upset."

"And you were upset with me?"

"Well of course I was!" Ruby exclaimed, giving Weiss an annoyed glance, staring at her blue eyes, "After everything you said to me, and then you just started to avoid me for _no_ _reason_? Yeah, I was mad at you!"

Weiss wilted on the spot, and she almost looked like she was about to cry. "I'm sorry."

Ruby's burst of anger evaporated immediately, "No, it's alright," Ruby replied, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have exploded at you like that."

"It's ok, I probably deserve it." Weiss muttered quietly.

Weiss walked over to the bed and sat beside Ruby, though she still looked scared. It was nothing like the Weiss that Ruby knew from these past few weeks, and it was starting to make her frightened. She just pat Weiss on the back though, "What's wrong?"

"Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?"

Ruby chuckled, "Well, we already know I'm messed up, but I have no idea what's wrong with you."

"Didn't I tell you the other day not to take your condition so lightly?" Weiss asked, a hint of annoyance in her voice as she narrowed her eyes at Ruby – not quite a glare, but close.

"Right, sorry." Ruby replied, "But my point was that you already know what's wrong with me, now I want to know what's up with you."

"It's something that I thought of when we were in class earlier today…" Weiss muttered, revealing only a little, "I don't even know if it's true though, it's probably just my mind being over active."

"Just over active?"

"Well, it's not surprising given the last few days we've had," Weiss commented, "Everything's just been getting to me."

"I can imagine that feeling," Ruby replied dryly. She would have smiled, except she knew Weiss wouldn't appreciate it, "So that's all you wanted to talk to me about?"

She was avoiding the issue again – that much Ruby was certain, but she would be patient and allow Weiss to tell her on her own terms, even if it meant waiting another few hours, given the pace things were going. Weiss still kept glancing at her, and each time Ruby would just stare right back at her.

"Fine!" Weiss finally exclaimed, causing Ruby to jump a little, "You want to know what's wrong?"

"I assume that's why we're talking." Ruby replied.

"Ugh! Stop it with all of this sarcastic crap, Ruby! This is… It's…" She growled, "I just started to wonder why I wanted you to stay with me… It confused me… I couldn't figure out why you meant so much to me."

Ruby's smile only grew wider, "I care about you too Weiss."

"No, I don't mean it like that, I mean it like…" She paused, and Ruby could see her going pale, "I mean it like…"

"You mean it like what?"

"Like…" Weiss suddenly whispered something so quickly, and Ruby wasn't able to catch any of it at all.

"What did you say?" Ruby asked, "I didn't hear you."

Weiss seem to only sink in on herself, "I said that I _think_ that _maybe_ I _might_ like you."

Ruby tilted her head in confusion, "I like you too though."

"You don't understand!" Weiss cried, glaring at Ruby now, "I don't mean like friends! You stupid idiot!"

"Not like friends, then…" Ruby's eyes suddenly widened, "Wait…" She looked at Weiss with huge eyes now, "You mean _that_ kind of like?"

"No!" Weiss shook her head, "Well… Maybe."

"You're not being very clear right now, Weiss…" Ruby muttered.

"These past few days – the last two weeks actually," Weiss began, "Have made me think about a lot of things. After Y – Yang's passing, I learned the hard way that I needed to appreciate my friends better than I did before. I always took it for granted that you'd all always be there with me, and Yang was the strongest person I knew, so I never really expected her to… pass away." She whispered the words, stealing a glance towards Ruby.

Ruby nodded in understanding, "I see…" the mention of Yang alone ruined her good mood, and that voice in the back of her head grew slightly stronger.

"I guess I kind of grew attached to you." Weiss muttered, a light blush crossing her face, "After you tried to k – kill yourself, I couldn't stand to think of what things would be like with you gone. And then after last night, I lost it. If you were to die Ruby, I don't know what I would do."

"I…" Ruby didn't think of how exactly her _own_ death would affect her friends and their lives. She'd been so busy trying to justify the cause of her death that she didn't consider them one bit. She may have been in a dark place, she may have thought they didn't care, but that hardly gave her the right to do that to them, did it? She bit her bottom lip, and looked away from Weiss, "I'm sorry."

"I didn't want to talk about that though," Weiss fell back on her bed, her arms spread apart as she looked up at Ruby's bunk – the bunk in which Ruby hadn't used in several days. "I'm just avoiding the topic… I'm a coward." She grit her teeth, glaring angrily towards the bunk above her.

"You're not a coward," Ruby shook her head, "You're one of the strongest people I know!"

"That's not true," Weiss replied, "If I were stronger, I'd be able to let you go."

Ruby could practically _feel_ Weiss freeze moments after she said that, as if she didn't intend to say it aloud. It was hard to notice that feeling however, when Ruby felt her heart heavily beat against her chest at the words, "What?"

Weiss was still frozen, but then she slowly thawed, looking ashamed now. She avoided Ruby's eyes and she muttered, "These past few years have been some of the best in my life, you know."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Ruby asked curiously.

"Just shut up for a bit," Weiss retorted. She sat up, and leaned forward, in a distinctly unlady-like fashion. It would have been funny to Ruby, if Weiss just didn't look so worn out and exhausted just then. Ruby couldn't help but wonder how long Weiss's hair had been frayed like that, or the subtle black spots under her eyes that she tried so hard to cover with make-up.

"Ok." Ruby gave the girl a small nod, and just sat there silently, waiting for her to begin.

"Since you told me about your family, the least I can do is tell you about mine." Weiss finally started after a few moments, "Ever since I was born, I've always had everything I wanted, and it was because from the moment I was born, I was the heiress to the Schnee family name." She grimaced at that, "Everything I got was always the best of the best, never lower quality. I had the best food, the best teachers, the best furniture… You get the idea. It was almost literally anything I could imagine, and they'd bring it to me."

"It sounds so great when I say it like that," Weiss chuckled humorlessly, "But in return for all of this, I had to be the best heiress I could possibly be. When I was only four, I remember going to classes to learn how to read and write. Whenever I ate, I had to use the right utensils in the right order, or else I would be denied s mrsl. I had to be perfect in every little thing I did, or else I wouldn't get what I wanted. It was my incentive to work harder, better, and faster."

"It was the only life I ever knew, but I would read on my free time. I remember finding a book where a group of people travel together to try and save the world." She shook her head ruefully, "It was cliché as it could possibly be, and I probably would have stopped reading if not for one thing: It kept off-handedly mentioning how they were friends – how they would do anything for each other due to friendship. The book treated this like it was no big deal, as if everyone knew what it was. Unfortunately, it was such a foreign concept to me that I actually went to talk to my dad about it."

She let out a sigh, glancing across the room, her eyes glazed over as she recalled the memories, "He told me not to worry about it, that friends aren't necessary and that they would be a waste of time for me. He was my father, so of course I believed him, why wouldn't I? So for the next few years, I continued to do what I always did, but that always stuck with me, for some weird reason. Thinking back on it now, I guess it's because I wanted to know what it was like to have a friend."

She flashed Ruby a genuine smile, and Ruby had no problem returning it, "Thanks for that, by the way. I don't think I ever said that."

"It's no problem," Ruby replied, chuckling, "Though I think I made a fairly bad first impression…"

"Yeah," Weiss chuckled, "You did."

"So what happened after all of that?" Ruby asked, wondering what the point of the story was. It was nice to learn about Weiss's past, but she couldn't really figure out how it tied into their current situation at all.

"I started to become a Huntress because my dad said so." Weiss replied easily, "I never wanted to do this initially, but he pretty much forced me into doing it like he did with everything else. He claimed that he wanted me to be able to defend myself from The White Fang, and that is a fair point, but I still resented him for the longest time for it. The thing is, I knew by that point that he and my mother only saw me as a _thing_ to be molded into the head of the company. I wasn't really their daughter, not like Winter – she's my sister." Weiss added, seeing Ruby's confusion.

"Wait, you have a sister?!" Ruby exclaimed in shock.

Weiss shrugged, "We don't really talk much, and it never really came up."

"Oh…" Ruby muttered, allowing her pang of jealousy to die off. Weiss and her sister didn't seem to get along, not like she did with Yang, so there was nothing really to be envious about, really. Still, should couldn't help but feel a small sting of hurt, since Weiss never brought it up before now, despite attending Beacon for three years together.

"It wasn't until I started to attend classes here with a dunce like you that I really learned what I've missed out on. You're the first girl around my age I ever talked to, so I didn't really know how to act. That's why I was so…" She frowned, thinking of a word to use.

"Bitchy?" Ruby supplied.

Weiss gave her a flat stare, but sighed, "Yes, fine, _bitchy _to you when we first met."

Ruby grinned, "It's ok! It turned out to be for the best in the end!"

"It really did," Weiss nodded, "You, Blake, and Yang were the best thing to ever happen to me. I finally got the friends I've wanted, and I learned how to let go of my heritage and act like a normal girl – for the most part." Ruby chuckled at that. While the heiress _did _change, old habits die hard, and there was no way Weiss would act like a completely normal person, but relative to how she initially was, Ruby had to concede that she was far better now than the first few months she knew her.

"And…" Weiss paused, "over the years, after being with you so long, after having you treat me like anyone else… I just…" She let out a sigh, "I started to see you in a different light."

Ruby's heart gave a loud thump against her chest, "Huh?"

"I never acknowledged it though," Weiss muttered, "I'm the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company! For all of my life, I've lived up to my father's ideals, and I knew from the moment I was born that I would eventually need to be the one to not only run the company, but I'd also need to produce an heir as well." She again started chuckling, though these were mixed with a few stray tears, "Can you imagine how surprised he'd be if he found out his daughter liked a girl?"

"You… Like me?" Ruby asked, "As in…"

"Love?" Weiss finished for her, her cheeks flaring red, and tears began to well up in her eyes at a faster rate, "I don't know if I ever would have realized it if it weren't for what happened. Even if I _did_ realize it, I doubt I would have ever acted on it if Yang was still around, but like I said before… She taught me to value those close to me, since they can go away before you know it, and I don't want to regret never telling you this, even if you don't recuperate it."

Ruby watched as Weiss started to tremble like a leaf, and she knew that gathering up the will to confess must have taken absolutely all of her courage to do. She was now avoiding eye contact again, and was tapping her foot nervously. If her mouth wasn't shut so tight, Ruby was sure that Weiss's teeth would be chattering as well.

But… She never really thought of this before. Love? Weiss? She was a great friend, sure, but love? It made her happy to know that Weiss cared so much about her, but she was still unsure of her own feelings towards the white-haired girl. The girl who tried so hard to care for her these last few days, the one who begged her to stay, the one who stayed by her side even when Blake left, and the only one who kept constantly coming back to her even when she'd pushed everyone away. How did she feel about that girl?

She nearly laughed – was that even a real question?

"I love you too."

Everything froze in the room, and Weiss just stared at Ruby, and Ruby stared right back at her. Unlike Ruby, who was smiling, Weiss's mouth was just open in shock, tears forgotten as she just looked. Was it really so surprising? Ruby couldn't help but think to herself that if anything, it was more of a shock that Weiss was the one to confess, and not the other way around. Though given certain circumstances, she supposed that it made a little bit of sense that Weiss confessed first, actually.

"What did you say?" Weiss finally asked.

"I. Love. You." Ruby couldn't help but giggle at the huge burst of red that formed on Weiss's cheeks.

"I – You!" Weiss was entirely flustered, and that only caused Ruby to start laughing. Weiss was so confused that she just stared at Ruby longer, until Ruby finally stopped laughing a short while later.

"You should've seen the look on your face!" Ruby chuckled.

"How can you say that so easily?" Weiss wondered, "It's so… embarrassing!"

"I love you?" Ruby tilted her head, grinning at the blush of red on Weiss's face again, "Are you going to do that every time I say it?"

"N – No!" Weiss shook her head, "I'm just surprised!"

Ruby's mood was at an all-time high now, and she just hummed, "If you say so~!"

"S – Stop it!"

"Nuh-uh!"

Weiss pointedly looked away and crossed her arms, "After I worried for so long about this, you just say it like it's no big deal," Weiss grumbled, "I can't believe you…"

"Aren't you happy?" Ruby finally asked.

"Well…" Weiss's arms uncrossed, and she shyly looked to the ground, "M – Maybe…"

"Do you wanna kiss?" Ruby asked.

"NO!" Weiss shouted, "No! No! That's too much!"

"I'm just kidding!" Ruby again started to laugh.

"Yeah, laugh it up," Weiss dejectedly sighed, her cheeks still flushed.

"But really," Ruby muttered, "Thank you. After everything that's happened, I really needed to hear someone say that." A light smile crossed her face, "So… What do we do now?"

"About what?"

"About _us._"

"Um…" Weiss looked away, "I don't know…"

"Oh? The prestigious heiress to the Schnee Dust Company is at a loss of words? Wait until I call the press!" Ruby grinned at Weiss's sharp look, "I'm just kidding around."

"Look…" Weiss muttered, "I've been thinking very long about this, and how I would say it to you."

"Yeah?"

Weiss stood up and spun around to face Ruby, "You seem ok now, you know… Like how you used to be."

Ruby had to agree – she was even feeling like her older self as well. The voice, or impulse or whatever it was, was only now barely a whisper that registered in her mind. She felt lighter and happier than she had in weeks.

"But how long is that going to last?" Weiss finally muttered.

Ruby's mood dampened, and she seriously considered the question. How long would it last? She didn't know, and that was actually kind of scary. She'd been fine yesterday too, before she attempted suicide, and who's to say that it wouldn't happen again tonight. "I don't know," Ruby admitted, "I feel great right now, and I'm not even considering it, but…" She felt the voice whisper to her then.

_Lies._

She was lying to herself.

She was still considering it, even if she wanted to deny it. Even with Weiss admitting her love to her, even with how happy she was right now, the impulse wasn't going away.

"So…" Weiss looked close to crying now as she stood up and walked in front of Ruby, "I think… You should go."

"What?" Ruby snapped out of her thoughts, and stared at Weiss, "You want me to go?"

"Yes…"

"But I thought you didn't want me to…" Ruby muttered, unable to hide how much it hurt to hear Weiss say that. Tears already started to spring to her eyes, and she clutched the bedsheet with her fists, "You just said you loved me, and you want me to leave?"

"It's only because I care about you that I want you to go," Weiss replied, tears running down her eyes, "Believe me, I don't want you to go, but… It's for the best. You need help, you know it, and if you died, I don't know what I would do…"

Ruby bit her bottom lip again as her tears fell, bitterly agreeing with Weiss with a small nod of her head, "You're right."

"Then…" Weiss's lips trembled, "Tomorrow morning."

"One day before the funeral." Ruby muttered.

"That's when we'll tell Ozpin our decision." Weiss finished.

She needed help – this was a good thing. Trained professionals would be there to help her through her issues, to get the voice to leave her head, but that meant leaving everything behind. Her dreams of becoming a Huntress would have to be put on hold, and her entire life would stop for perhaps a few months, maybe even _years_ as she recovered. She didn't want that – she wanted to stay with Weiss, the one who she loved, the one who just confessed her love for her.

However, it was the mere fact that she was now contemplating suicide as a viable option over leaving that she knew she had to go. Before Yang's death, she'd _never _even think of it, and now it was always there, lurking in her mind. Her self-doubt was coming forth at the thought of leaving, telling her that she was an awful person and a horrible team leader, that she was worthless for giving up on her dreams.

"Can I make one request?" Ruby asked, glancing up at Weiss.

"What is it?" Weiss asked, having stayed quiet the entire time.

"I just want to hear you actually say it."

"Say what?"

"Say you love me," Ruby replied, causing Weiss's cheeks to turn red. Before it was funny, but now it only made Ruby want to cry. She kept it together though, and just waited patiently for Weiss.

"Ruby," Weiss whispered her name, sending a tingle down her spine, "I… Love you."

She couldn't hold it back any longer and began to cry in earnest.

XxXxXxX

Notes:

This turned out much longer than anticipated. There were hints all through the story that Weiss cared deeper for Ruby than as just friends, but in my initial outline I never really intended to do anything with it. Now that I'm completely rewriting the ending, I figured I might as well go into it. I didn't want the whole "Weiss realizes she loves Ruby" subplot to take over the story though, so I made sure Ruby's depression was still the main focus for everything. I also tried to be more dialogue heavy in the last scene, but I don't know if it worked well or not. I like it though, so I guess in the end that's all that really matters.

If Ruby or Weiss's realizations about their love for one another was too sudden, then I apologize, but like I said, going this in-depth with the White Rose stuff was never in the original outline, so if it comes across as somewhat odd, that's why. I'd pretty much have to rewrite the ENTIRE first half if I wanted it to feel more natural, and you know what? I'm not going to do that.

There should just be one more chapter, and then it's done for good.


	6. Chapter 6

"I need help." Ruby told Ozpin, as she and her two teammates stood in front of the headmaster in his office, the prestigious man himself seated behind a large desk. Blake stood to her left, and Weiss a little to her right, and both of them stayed silent as Ruby spoke. That night the two of them took turns watching Ruby, making sure she wouldn't make a third attempt at her own life, and at six in the morning, they made their way to the headmaster's office. They weren't sure he'd be there so early, but it was indeed open, and he was waiting there patiently for them.

"Oh?" Ozpin took a sip of his ever present cup of coffee.

Ruby uncovered her wrists, and held them up for him to see, "I've… Tried to kill myself." She muttered, looking down to the floor in shame as she lowered her hands to her side, "I need help."

Ozpin studied her for a long moment, and then his gaze switched to Weiss, who was just staring straight at the ground, not saying a single word. He could see her shaking, and he knew immediately that she was greatly opposed to this, but was going along with it anyway. His eyes wandered over to Blake, who was holding it together much better, but he could already see the sadness in her eyes. She was avoiding looking over at Ruby, and was just staring straight at him. Their eyes met, and Blake turned away almost immediately.

"This is very serious," He finally stated after a long moment, "When did this happen?"

"Two nights ago," Ruby lied, keeping her friends safe. If Ozpin found out that they kept the first attempt secret, then who knows what he would do.

"You should have come to me as soon as it happened," He said, directing his words at Weiss and Blake, "Hiding something like this is ill advised." He then looked towards Ruby, "Then I expect you want me to give you indefinite leave from classes?"

A long moment of silence passed.

He saw Ruby glance over at Weiss, and then towards Blake, tears springing to her eyes. He could see clearly as day that she wanted to say no, that she wanted to stay with her friends, but she closed her eyes. She was stronger than that, she already admitted that she needed help, so he already knew she was going to go through with it. He was unsurprised that Weiss wasn't able to help Ruby, but he did feel bad for the poor girl. The heiress was unable to hide her tears, though she tried to hide them under her bangs.

"I'm not going to leave." Ruby stated firmly. Blake glanced at Ruby in shock, her yellow eyes widening a small bit. Weiss too looked over at Ruby. Weiss was about to say something, but Ruby shook her head. "I want help, and I would like to request aid, but I want to stay here."

"Is that so?" Ozpin asked, raising an eyebrow, though a very small smile appeared on his lips, unnoticed by the three girls in front of him.

"Yes," Ruby replied earnestly, "I'm not going to quit, but I know I can't go on like this, I need to do something about it as soon as possible."

"I see," He took another long sip of his coffee before setting it down again.

"Treating my – my illness," Ruby spat the word out distastefully, "And attending Beacon aren't mutually exclusive, I can do both at the same time. I might miss classes occasionally, and I might not feel well on certain days, but I can do it. I _know_ I can do it."

"While that _is_ true, I hope you realize that if you do intend to stay at Beacon, you will be expected to fight the Grimm and participate in practice fights with other students. I've already heard from Ms. Goodwitch that you had an 'episode' in her class the other day."

"I can control that," Ruby claimed, "Before that happened, I was doing just fine, ask Jaune about it if you don't believe me!"

"That may be, I still believe it's not a good idea to allow you to stay, especially after seeing the state of your wrists." He pointed to her bandaged wrists, and she nervously hid them behind her body, "Now that I know about that, I'd be responsible if something were to happen."

"Nothing will happen." Ruby replied.

"If I may?" Blake spoke up, looking nervously at the headmaster, who nodded his head towards her, giving her permission. "I'm not a doctor, but I've seen symptoms like this before," She didn't elaborate on that, but Ozpin knew that it was most likely from her times in the White Fang. "There's medication to deal with these kinds of things, and sending her to Vale once a week for therapy wouldn't cut too much into her classes."

"Yeah!" Ruby exclaimed, "Exactly!"

"Do you truly want to attempt to stay?" He finally asked, "Don't get me wrong, I like your bravado, and I appreciate that you want to keep attending, but as Blake has said, I've known people in _my_ life as well who've gone through the same thing you have, and they've needed years to recover enough to interact with others, let alone be an active Hunter."

"I'm _not_ like them!" Ruby denied quickly as she took a step forward, "If I left now, I'd be leaving everything I've worked for behind! Yang didn't die so I could just mope around and cry all day," She winced hard at the mention of Yang, and Ozpin could see her eyes lose a bit of luster at the mention.

"It appears that even mentioning Yang has an effect on you," Ozpin noted.

Ruby bit her bottom lip, and glanced away, "Yeah, it does."

"But I can see you're trying to work pass this," He noted.

"I am," She confirmed with a curt nod, "But it's still hard. That's why I want – no, _need_ – help, I know there's medicine to help me with this…" She pointed at her head, "To make these thoughts go away."

"Anti-depressants," Ozpin helpfully supplied, and Ruby nodded quickly, "You'd have to be responsible and _always_ take them, even when you're feeling well."

"I can take care of that," Weiss chirped, looking more hopeful, "I won't ever let her miss out on it."

"That may be, but in the end, it's not up to me to decide whether she stays or not." He leaned back in his chair, and he set his coffee down, "She'll need to be evaluated by professionals – people who can actually gauge your mental state. If they deem that you're fit to continue attendance, then I see no reason in denying it."

Ruby frowned, "I guess that's the best I can ask for."

"Given the circumstances, I think so." Ozpin agreed readily.

"How long until the evaluation?" Weiss asked.

"Ruby will be gone after Yang's funeral tomorrow," He replied, "I don't know how long they'll keep her," He shrugged, "But I'll allow her to stay if she can get a psychiatrist to say that she's still fit for duty." His gaze then hardened, "And that's the thing Ruby, if you stay, I will be expecting you to be able to fight. You're here training to fight the Grimm, and if you're incapable of fighting, or if you have another breakdown like you did before, then whether you think you're ready or not, I'm not going to allow you to keep attending."

It was harsh, he supposed, but Ruby seemed to relish in the fact that he was even bothering to say so much to her. She smiled, and nodded, "I understand!"

"Good," He replied, "Then I suggest you three enjoy this day, since it may be your last on a team together. Oh, and Blake," He noticed her eyes snapping up towards him, "You'll have a new partner next week, I hope this is acceptable?"

Blake nodded, "Yeah, it is."

"Good, then you're dismissed." He told them, and the three girls walked out of the room. He downed the rest of his coffee, and shook his head. He knew that Ruby would probably be coming to admit that much, but he didn't expect her to stubbornly try to stay as well. Was she going to succeed in her wish? Well, maybe, she seemed fairly stable a few moments ago, but then again, seeing her wounds, he could hardly make a professional call on her stability.

Regardless, he wished her the best of luck.

XxXxXxX

The atmosphere at the cemetery was thick, so much so that Weiss felt like she was suffocating. She took a few calming breaths, and looked to her right at Ruby, who was wearing all-black, and was bawling her eyes out. Blake was on Ruby's other side, and she was dressed like Ruby and Weiss – all black. Blake placed a hand on Ruby's shoulder, trying to provide any support she could, but it was barely working.

Ruby was barely able to keep it together that morning when they were getting ready to attend the funeral. What made it even worse was that she had all of her stuff packed up as well, since she may never return to Beacon. And then when they got onto the airship to leave Beacon, the first few tears started to form at the corners of Ruby's eyes, and drift slowly down her face, before finally she was unable to keep her composure as they got off the airship and made their way through Vale.

Weiss was surprised at where they found themselves – the cemetery Yang was being buried at was a designated spot only for Hunters, and she couldn't recall Hunters-in-training being allowed to be buried there. She assumed that Ozpin or some other person had some sway in the decision, but either way, it did little to offset the fact that she was feeling horrible as she walked down towards the gravesite.

They would be able to peer at Yang's body one last time before she'd forever be out of their lives, only to live on in their memories. Weiss could feel her own eyes starting to tear up at the mere thought, but she took another calming breath, steeling her resolve. Blake on the other hand, Weiss could see, was unable to hide her tears. It made sense, Weiss supposed, since Blake was Yang's partner, but it was still depressing to see the usually strong girl crying.

It wasn't until they made it to the open casket that Ruby broke down, collapsing to her knees, incapable of even speech. Weiss however just stared at Yang, and while it was cliché to say, it was true that it only looked like she was in a peaceful sleep. There was no longer any blood in her yellow hair she cared so much about, and there wasn't a hole in the clothing or blood anywhere. She looked away however, unable to bear seeing her teammate anymore as tears traveled down her face.

She knelt down next to Ruby, "Come on," She whispered to the poor girl. She reached out, and tenderly grasped Ruby's hand. Though Ruby didn't seem to even acknowledge a word Weiss said, she did at least grip Weiss's hand tightly, almost to the point that it hurt, but Weiss didn't say anything, and she helped Ruby up.

"I'll be with you guys in a little bit," Blake muttered, and Weiss could see that the Faunus was only barely managing to keep it together.

"Alright," Weiss replied. It wasn't her place to pry if Blake wanted to mourn without their presence. Instead, she just helped Ruby along, occasionally greeting a few people who walked up to them. Even team JNPR were there, Nora in particular being very quiet as they calmly talked to each other briefly before they parted.

The most interesting person to greet them was a very tall man, who had a nasty scar running from his ear all the way across his face to his chin. His eyes were piercing, and Weiss felt a chill run down her as he just stared straight down at her. His shoulders were very broad, and his hair was a mess. He knelt down next to Ruby, and finally spoke, "Hey, Ru, how are you holding up?"

"Uncle Qrow…" Ruby muttered, her lips trembled and tears continued down her face. He handed her a tissue from his pocket, which she gratefully took. "I'm… I'm…" Again her voice got caught in her throat.

The man leaned forward and hugged her, "It's alright…"

"This… This is my fault…" Ruby whispered to him, "I'm so sorry."

"No, it's not," Qrow replied, ending the hug and placing his large hands on her shoulder, "This isn't something to blame yourself over. I've read the reports, and I know what happened. Your father nor I blame you for this."

"Really…?" She asked, "You don't?"

"We don't." Weiss eyed another man who walked over, and he looked far more like Yang than Ruby. His blond hair was cut very short, and he had silver eyes like Ruby. Like Qrow beside him, he was quite tall, and had a build that suggested he fought close and personal. He was a Huntsman, after all, and just from looks alone, Weiss could already tell where Yang had gotten her fighting style from.

"Dad…" Ruby muttered. She didn't even wait before she rushed over to him and wrapped her arms around him, wailing into his chest. Her father just started to pat her back the entire time, whispering soothing words to the distress girl.

"You're Weiss?" Qrow asked, causing Weiss to snap her attend back to the other man standing before her, "Nice to meet you." He held out his hand.

"Nice to meet you too," She replied, "Though I wish it was under better circumstances…"

"Isn't that the truth," The man muttered, sneaking a flask out of his suit, and he took a long swig of it. "Regardless, I'm glad to finally meet you. Ruby liked to talk about you quite a bit over the summer."

"Did she now?" Weiss asked curiously. She'd always gone back to Atlas during the break, so she was never aware of what the rest of her team was doing during that time.

"All the time," He confirmed.

A blush crossed her face, and she shyly looked to the ground, "Well… That's flattering I suppose. I hope she didn't say anything too embarrassing?"

"Well…" A smile started to appear on his face, but then he sighed, "We can talk about such things at a later date." Weiss could agree with that. Every attempt at lightening the mood was dampened considerably due to obvious circumstances, not to mention it was hard to smile when Ruby was bawling right beside her.

The service itself was respectable, though it was hard to hear the eulogy with Ruby practically burying herself into her side, unable to stop crying. She just continued to pat the girl the entire time, and only gave Blake a look when she walked over and seated herself next to Weiss. Her eyes were red and puffy, but Weiss didn't say anything, not wanting to bring attention to it needlessly. Instead, she just focused straight ahead.

It was afterwards that Ruby's dad walked over to where they were seated. "Are you ready to go, Ruby?" He asked in a gruff voice, obviously trying to hide his emotions, "We have a lot of things we need to do."

Ruby nodded, wiping her eyes, and she turned to Weiss, "I'll see you guys in a week, alright?"

It was an optimistic guess, but Weiss nodded anyway, "Yeah…"

Blake gave Ruby a curt nod, "See you soon."

Before Ruby left though, she reached forward and hugged Weiss, "I'll miss you."

Weiss didn't trust her voice, and just wrapped her arms around her. She hoped Ruby got her meaning, and when they parted, she just weakly waved as her partner left. She felt Blake grip her shoulder, and she allowed her to lead her out of the cemetery. They didn't want to stay to see the casket being lowered into the ground – there was no need, and Weiss doubted she'd be able to keep it together.

Though with Ruby gone, she already felt emptier on the inside.

XxXxXxX

Almost three weeks passed since then, and Blake was only just now beginning to recover. It still hurt a LOT to think of Yang, and she avoided all topics about the funeral and Yang like the plague, and no one really ever pushed it. It felt surreal how things seemed to just go back to the ways they were, despite how much changed. Classes were the same boring things, her schedule didn't change much, and even her friends just seemed to act like it never happened.

Her new partner was an interesting fellow though, and it was very difficult to get used to having a male in their dorm room, though she appreciated the company. It felt even weirder when he used Yang's bed – a part inside of her screamed in indignation, but she knew that he wasn't doing it to be rude, it was just how it was assigned. Yu – what an odd name – was a good person though, and she felt comfortable around him.

It was odd to have him replace Yang, simply because he was very scrawny and didn't rely on brute strength like her old teammate. Though like Yang, his hair was also blond, and he seemed to care about it just as much. Was it just a thing with blonde people that they had to care about their hair to such a ridiculous extent? Despite all of that, she enjoyed being around him, if only because he tended to stay quiet when she read.

"Where's Weiss?" Yu asked one night when they were doing their homework, and he glanced up from the desk beside his bed towards her, twirling his pencil absent-mindedly.

"Probably in the library." Blake replied, still writing down answers.

"Oh." He mumbled, gripping his pencil with a quick movement, ending its spinning. He still fidgeted though, and asked, "Has she seemed a little… upset to you lately?"

"Well we haven't heard anything from Ruby in weeks," Blake replied, "So I imagine she's just getting upset about that."

"Oh, that's right." He nervously rubbed the back of his head, "I kinda forgot about that."

Blake rolled her eyes, "Better to ask me than bring it up to her, she'd beat your head in for asking something like that."

"That's… Good to know."

Weiss seemed to be almost robotic these last few days, Blake idly thought. If she wasn't spoken to, the heiress could go through the entire day without a single word going through her lips. Everything she did was as if she was on auto-pilot, her mind elsewhere, and Blake knew why. If Ruby didn't return soon, then she would have to get a new partner, and given what she learned from Weiss the past week, the heiress _really_ didn't want that.

It was a bit distressing not to hear anything from Ruby however, they figured she'd at least message them, or even send them a letter the old fashion way. Either way, it was taking far too long for their liking, and at least for Blake, it made her thoughts turn to darker things. What if Ruby managed to go through with suicide, or if she decided that she didn't want to come back? It was chilling to think that she may never see her team leader again, and she couldn't help but wish that she was with them.

So it was quite a surprise when the door to her door was slammed open quite loudly. She threw her assignment into the air, and her pencil flew off, never to be found again. She growled, and turned towards the door, ready to yell at whoever it was that would _dare_ scare her like that, but her insults were stopped by the sight of red.

"HELLO TEAM RWBY!" Ruby ecstatically shouted, tossing her bag aside as she stomped into the room, "You guys miss me?!"

"Um…" Yu blinked owlishly, "Hi?"

"Oh," Ruby eyed him, and smile widened across her face, "You the new kid?"

He chuckled, "The name's Yu, I assume you're Ruby?"

"That's right! Nice to meet you!" She walked over to him, "Doing homework?" She leaned on the desk, a grimace crossing her face, "Ugh! That looks horrible."

"It truly is." He nodded, "What's the point of homework in a school that's training us for combat?"

"I know right?" Ruby exclaimed, "It's stupid!"

"There's a good reason for it," Blake replied, walking up to Ruby, "I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to corrupt my partner."

"Blake!" Ruby jumped towards her, and wrapped her arms around her, "I missed you so much!"

"I missed you too," Blake replied, her worried melting away as she held Ruby. She then glanced towards her bag, "So if you're here, I guess that you're fit to return to duty?"

"Yep!" Ruby nodded, she marched over to her bag, and knelt down beside it, "The most important thing is this," She pulled out a prescription bottle filled with pills, "I _need_ to take these every night before bed, or else, well, you know." She saw Blake nod, "I also have to visit the doctor's office once a week, so I'll have to schedule around that, not to mention I have to go to therapy monthly, so there's that to schedule around too."

"That's… A lot of things." Blake replied.

Ruby shrugged, "It's better than the alternative, right?"

A smile, "Yeah, it is. I'm glad you're back."

"Trust me, I'm even gladder to be back." Ruby chuckled, "It was nice to see dad and uncle Qrow again, but…" She let out a sigh, and she frowned slightly, "It was just depressing, you know? Me and dad were both pretty messed up, so uncle Qrow took care of us and watched over us." She replied, "Oh – speaking of uncle Qrow, if the medicine doesn't work, or has severe symptoms, I need to call him immediately."

Blake nodded passively, "So you're alright now?"

Ruby smiled ruefully at Blake, "About as alright as I can be after what happened." She let out a sigh, "But I'm ready to work pass this now."

"That's good," Blake nodded.

"So where's Weiss?" Ruby asked, grabbing her bag, she tossed it atop her bed, causing it to swing from side to side dangerously before settling down.

"I think she's in the library," Blake answered, "You should go see her, I think it'll give her a heart attack to see you after the radio silence for nearly a month."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Ruby apologetically nodded her head, "I… I was having a tough time, but I guess I should have called you when I knew I was coming back."

"Yeah," Blake replied, "But I guess since you're back now I can forgive you."

"Thanks!" Ruby grinned, and then she turned to Yu, "It was nice to meet you, Yu…" She paused after saying his name, and then she chuckled lightly.

"Get it out of your system," He rolled his eyes, "Nice to meet you too, I hope we can work well together."

"Don't worry about that, we will." Ruby replied casually, "Now I'm going to go find Weiss! You guys have fun!"

She walked out of the room, leaving two stunned people behind.

"I like her!" Yu exclaimed.

"Everyone does," Blake chuckled, glad to see her back.

XxXxXxX

Weiss sat at a table in the corner of the library, where she hoped to not be disturbed. Her textbook was open in front of her, and her eyes were practically glaring at the words as she took notes. If anyone dare venture too close to her, she'd direct that gaze right onto them, and she smiled slightly as she saw them scurry away like cowards. Needless to say, she was pretty pissed off, and the person she was pissed off at wasn't there for her to rant to, so she just took it out on everyone else.

Ruby was supposed to at least give them some sort of message by now – she woke up these last few days hopeful that the girl that supposedly _loved_ her would say something, but there'd been nothing for a little over three weeks, and she knew that at this rate, Ozpin would see fit to give her a new partner, and he'd undoubtedly assign them a new leader. She fought so damn hard to keep Ruby as her partner _and_ leader, and now it was all going to be for nothing.

"Whatcha reading?" An annoying voice asked her from behind.

"None of your business," Weiss icily replied, "Go away."

"Ouch, that's harsh, Weiss."

Wait a minute…

Weiss spun around, her jaw dropping open as the girl she was _just _thinking of stood there. Ruby grinned at her, and shyly waved with her hand. She was wearing her typical Huntress outfit, the corset, the cape, the red and black color scheme… It was all there. Either this was by far the most convincing hallucination she'd ever experience, or Ruby Rose was actually standing there in the flesh. For the sake of her sanity, she decided it had to be the latter of the two options, and she reacted accordingly.

"You stupid DOLT!" Weiss cried, "Why didn't you ever call?!"

"Sorry about that," Ruby chuckled. Weiss wanted to strangle her for that chuckle.

Actually, a huge mixture of emotions whirled in her mind, and she was so shocked at seeing Ruby that she didn't know which one she wanted to settle on. Anger at Ruby for not even calling? Happiness to see her? She finally shook her head, calming her racing heart and mind, and she managed to ask, "Ozpin allowed you back in?"

"Yep," Ruby nodded, "I had to show him the paperwork from the doctor's office, and he decided I was fit to come back."

"What's the catch?" Weiss asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

"Well, I have to take pills every night before bed, and I have to go to therapy and the doctor's office every once in a while." Ruby explained, "But other than that, I should be good to go!"

"And that voice?" Weiss asked.

"Well… It never really left, but whenever I do what I'm supposed to do, it's quiet…" She admitted, "The doctor said that it will take a long time for that particular thing to go away, and he said it might never go away, but I can learn to ignore it."

"I see." Weiss replied.

Things turned awkward as Ruby just stood there, and Weiss looked at her from her seat. "I missed you the most, you know," Ruby spoke, "I was really excited to see you again."

Weiss stood up, her chair screeching as it dragged across the floor, and she turned fully towards Ruby, hugging her almost immediately, "I missed you too, you dunce." Weiss told her, trying to not let tears fall, "I was so worried!"

"Yeah," Ruby's voice rasped a little, and Weiss could feel her shoulders trembling, "I love you."

Weiss froze, "Eh?!"

"I love you," Ruby giggled upon seeing how Weiss reacted, "I thought you said you wouldn't do this anymore when I said it."

"It – it's just been a while!" Weiss defended herself, letting go of Ruby and turning away, trying desperately to hide her blush.

"Well, don't you have something to say back to me?" Ruby asked.

Weiss, crossed her arms, "Iloveyouareyouhappy?" Her words came out in a blur, and she already knew that Ruby missed most of it.

Ruby faked an expression of hurt, pouting her lips, and kicking the floor. "I thought you cared about me…" Her eyes were big, and Weiss could swear that she could see tears starting to form at the edges of her eyes.

"Ugh! Ok!" Weiss muttered, "I – I love you."

Ruby's smile reappeared, and she quickly hugged Weiss as tightly as she could to herself, "There you go!"

"Let go of me you dunce!" Weiss cried.

Letting go of Weiss, Ruby sat at her side, while Weiss returned to her own spot, and much to Ruby's chagrin, she started to explain the assignment, and then to Ruby's horror, Weiss started to go over _all_ of the assignments she missed over the last three weeks. Weiss grinned evilly at the girl as she continued to explain everything in as much detail as she could possibly give. This certainly wasn't payback for Ruby's lack of communication, nope, it was just because Weiss wanted Ruby to succeed in class. Nothing more to it.

After about an hour, a drained Ruby walked beside a _much_ happier Weiss, who was humming a song as she walked with her partner towards their room. If Ruby's head didn't hurt from the weeks' worth of knowledge that Weiss dumped in her mind, then she may have commented on it, but as it was, Ruby said nothing. Upon entering their room, they saw Yu on his bunk, playing a game on his scroll, and Blake was on her bed, reading a book.

"Oh, you're back," Blake noted, looking over to them, "Sure took you long enough, did you guys sneak into a closet along the way?"

"NO!" Weiss cried indignantly, "Nothing of the sort! I was just teaching Ruby all of the material she missed!"

Yu winced at that, "I'm so sorry," He told the girl earnestly.

"At least someone understands my pain," Ruby groaned, stumbling over to Weiss's bed and collapsing on it, "Someone help me, I don't have the strength to get up to my bunk…"

"Oh stop being so dramatic!" Weiss waved off Ruby's concern, "And get off my bed," She added half a second later.

"I'm going to go take a shower," Ruby decided, standing up, causing both Weiss and Blake to suddenly freeze.

"Is it alright to do that now?" Weiss asked, a hint of fear in her voice.

Ruby glanced between the two of them and nodded, "I'll be fine, I'm on medication now, remember? I won't do something like that again."

Weiss still looked scared, but Blake seemed to accept that answer and went back to reading her book. "Maybe I should go in there with you, just in case?" Weiss decided to say, causing Yu to let out a choked gasp.

"Say _what_ now?" Yu glanced down from his bunk.

"Not like that you pervert!" Weiss growled, "I swear, you get that mental image out of your head right now, or I'm going to get it out for you!"

"Deleted!" Yu cried, "It doesn't exist! 404 page not found!"

"Good," Weiss sighed, turning back towards Ruby.

Ruby put a hand on Weiss's shoulder, "I promise, I'll be fine. You don't need to worry about me doing that ever again."

Weiss decided that the twenty minutes Ruby was in the bathroom alone were twenty of the most distressing minutes of her life. Visions of what happened before clawed at her mind as she watched the door like a hawk, and she went to open the door several times, but Blake managed to talk her out of it each time. Finally, the door to the bathroom opened, and a pajama-clad Ruby stepped out.

With her tank-top on, Weiss could easily see her wrists, and she was glad to see that other than the scars from the self-inflicted wounds from three weeks ago, Ruby was cut free. She let out a content sigh at the sight, and went to take a shower directly after her.

Ruby didn't do very much that night, other than getting her stuff out and setting it up around the room. She lovingly put Crescent Rose on the wall as close to her bed as she could get, and then walked over to the dresser beside Weiss's bed where her pills were. She made sure to show them to her team, and then she went ahead and downed one. Afterwards, she got into bed, and Weiss followed suit, getting into her own bed.

After so many weeks, Weiss was finally able to get to sleep at a decent time again, no longer staying up plagued with guilt and nightmares. She would still get the occasional nightmare every once in a while, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as it was a month ago. Still, there was one thing she was missing…

"Hey, Weiss?" Weiss turned her head to the side, and saw Ruby peering down at her from her bunk.

"What?" Weiss asked.

"Do you mind if I sleep with you? Only for tonight, I swear!" she clapped her hands over her head, causing Weiss's eyes to dart to the other side of the room, making sure her other two teammates didn't wake up. Uncharacteristically, Weiss nodded almost immediately upon the request though, and Ruby climbed down, and then she snuggled into Weiss's side, a wide smile on her face. "Eh heheheh," Ruby giggled, "It's so warm."

Ruby's warmth, that's what she was missing.

"Yeah, it is." Weiss agreed.

"Hey," Ruby whispered.

"Yeah?"

"Love you."

Weiss felt her face flush, and she turned her head towards Ruby, "Oh yeah?"

"Are you blushing again?" Ruby chuckled, "You _are_ going to do that every single time, aren't you!" More giggles, and Weiss felt a vein popping on her head, "It's so cute!"

Weiss impulsively leaned forward, and planted her lips on Ruby's, causing the younger girl's eyes to widen comically. Though it was dark, she could see Ruby's face burst red, all the way up to her ears. Though it lasted only for a few seconds, Weiss was already missing it when she grinned at Ruby in triumph, "What were you saying?"

"Uh, I…" Ruby was at a loss for words.

Well, Weiss thought, hopefully this would make Ruby tone down her teasing from now on.

XxXxXxX

Notes:

There we go.

I rewrote the ending, effectively doubling the length of this story in the process. I'm MUCH happier with this ending though, so I think that's all that really matters. I was actually planning on writing a couple of more scenes of Ruby's struggles as she successfully continues her education at Beacon, but then I realized that they weren't really needed. After such a heavy story filled with depression and attempted-suicide, I think it's only fitting that it ends on a light and happy note - sort of like the light at the end of a long tunnel.

Thank you for reading!


End file.
